


satellites

by noahfics



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Babies, Communication, Getting Together, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Single Parents, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2018-10-05 09:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 54,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10303247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noahfics/pseuds/noahfics
Summary: ❝ …We only obsess over relationships that feel unfinished. ❞In which Kuroo is a single father, and Kenma gets a little more than he bargained for.





	1. onset

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on this for like seven years and i'm so relieved it's out there  
> also this will probably be about 6 parts but that is super not set in stone + the title is from cecelia and the satellite by andrew mcmahon

Kuroo Tetsurou has, in his twenty years, done several things one might deem ridiculous. His current situation m;standing in the middle of a convenience store, trying to reason with a six month old infant, has to be up there. Of course, previous ridiculous acts have included things such as attempting to take twenty shots to commemorate his twentieth birthday (Bokuto had bet that he could  _ not _ take all twenty; he’d been right, and Kuroo had stopped after the fourteenth, but he’d definitely given it a valiant effort), filling Kenma’s room with no less than three dozen balloons on his eighteenth birthday, and staying awake three nights in a row during his first semester of finals in college.

Things have changed though, in so many ways both big and small. He has, for the most part, left behind many of those things — parties, his education, and, for the most part, his social life, all in favor of parenting his daughter.

That’s still so strange to him. He has a  _ daughter.  _ He has a miserable daughter, who is very unhappy to be in this tiny store with her father. Tetsurou doesn’t want to be here either, but he doesn’t have a choice. Eri is scarily close to running out of her diapers, they’re scraping the bottom of the can for formula, and Tetsurou doesn’t have anything that even remotely resembles dinner for himself.

“Almost done, Eri,” he soothes, though her insistent cries are anything but soothed. Tetsurou doesn’t know the last time he received so many dirty looks. He half wants to explain that he’s  _ trying _ , that he’s her sole caretaker, that he’s just trying to be a good dad, but he doesn’t. Instead, he finishes his purchase and hightails it out of the store, crying baby and all.

She’s calmed if only slightly by the time they get back to the apartment. Tetsurou elects to leave his purchases on the counter in favor of feeding her and getting her down to bed. She sleeps with him most of these days, when Kenma isn’t sleeping over. He tried desperately for the first few weeks of her life to get her to sleep in her crib nightly, to no avail.

So, he’s never without  _ somebody  _ in bed next to him, be that his best friend or his daughter. A few times, it’d been all three of them, and Tetsurou’s heart had just about exploded seeing the two of them sleeping next to each other.

Kenma isn't here today, though – he will be tomorrow, and Tetsurou can’t say he’s not excited to see him – so he gets Eri settled on her side of the bed, praying that she’ll fall asleep so he can eat his own dinner while it’s still warm.

All in all, he manages; he only sleeps an hour before she’s awake, and then two more stretches, three hours each. All things considered, it’s not the worst night of sleep, not by far.

 

“You ready to get up, Eri?” he asks, turning to face her.

She doesn’t reply, naturally, and Tetsurou can’t help but laugh; all his attempts at communication with his child have been fruitless. She can’t reply, but she’s also the person he spends most of his time with, so he doesn’t have many other options.

As much as he might like to drift off, Eri is bright eyed and ready to go. Tetsurou doubts she’ll be patient much longer, so he might as well be ahead of the game.

It’s still strange, Tetsurou thinks, that this child is his. Obviously she’s his, a perfect mix of himself and her mother (though she does admittedly take more after him. She’s barely six months and already starting to mimic his smirk). Not to mention, he’s been the one taking care of her since birth, save for the first two weeks, when the three of them had stayed together, and save for the occasional weekend when she keeps their daughter.

Eri is his, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. It doesn’t feel like  _ that  _ long ago that he and Bokuto were in college. Furthermore, it  _ really  _ doesn’t feel like long ago that he was in high school, making frequent trips down to third gym.

He wonders, for a fleeting moment, how the others from third gym are doing. He keeps in pretty regular contact with Bokuto, and by extension, he knows how Akaashi is doing. Tsukishima is a different story, making exactly zero effort to keep in contact with Kuroo following high school. (Kuroo still calls him on occasion, much to Tsukishima’s dismay).

Thoughts of his high school friends – and Tsukki, who he couldn’t truthfully call his friend – get him through breakfast that morning. Eri is well behaved, and if Tetsurou weren’t so exhausted, he might actually be suspicious of her even temperament. 

“You’ll have to behave so I can clean,” he tells the infant, who does little more than give him a blank gaze. However, when Tetsurou smiles at her, she mirrors the expression back, and Tetsurou just hugs her close.

It’s not over as fast as it would have been if he  _ didn’t  _ have her, since he has to stop and take the time to attend to her, but he gets his apartment looking presentable  _ and  _ has an hour to spare before Kenma is due to come over.

It’s short lived, though, because the always punctual Kenma shows up ten minutes before they’d planned, apartment buzzer waking Tetsurou from his light sleep. It doesn’t wake Eri, though, and Tetsurou is incredibly glad for small victories like that.

“Kenma! Good to see you,” he greets, as if his friend  _ hadn’t  _ been over two days prior. (Which, he had, but Tetsurou misses him, always does).

“It’s quiet,” Kenma remarks, stepping out of his shoes. “Is Eri— ”

“She’s asleep,” Tetsurou says, shaking his head. “She threw a monumental tantrum in the store yesterday, so she must have tired herself out.” He grimaces at the thought of Eri’s fit in the convenience store, and suddenly her sleeping face seems at least twenty times lovelier. “I think,” Tetsurou begins, stepping into the kitchen, “she’s going to sleep for a while. Knock on wood, though.”

He sets out two cups of tea; he doesn’t bother to ask if Kenma wants any these days, because his friend is always cold and will  _ never  _ turn down a hot drink. He holds it with both hands as he sips, and Tetsurou wants to tell him how cute he looks.

He refrains, though, leans against the counter and just admires Kenma in all his glory, rosy tinted cheeks and all.

“Nice outside?” Tetsurou finally asks once he’s half finished his cup of tea.

“Not especially. It’s cold.”

“You’re always cold.

“I’m not,” Kenma retorts, one eyebrow arched.

“Whatever you say.”

It’s all in good fun, though. Kenma is Tetsurou’s whole focus; that’ll be until Eri wakes up, but Tetsurou can’t make himself think about that right now. It’s just Kenma, leaned against the doorframe. Kenma, who shakes his head and mumbles, “ _ stupid, _ ” when Tetsurou points out the high pink flush on his cheeks.

It feels, for a moment, like old times. Like high school, or like Tetsurou’s first year of college. It feels almost like the way it had been before Eri.

It’s strange to Tetsurou, how he thinks of his life in terms of ‘before Eri’ and ‘after Eri’, but it only makes sense when he stops to think about it. Things have changed massively since her arrival and in the months prior. He likes to think he’s grown immensely as a person since becoming a dad, though at heart, he’s just the same as he always was.

Nighttime finds the three of them on the couch. Tetsurou is wide awake, defying all odds, but the one on his lap is definitely fighting sleep, and Kenma seems to be struggling to keep his eyes open. If only for purely selfish reasons (because Tetsurou likes the slight weight of Kenma leaning against him and he loves his quiet, even breathing, loves that he can faintly smell the laundry detergent that Kenma  _ always  _ somehow smells like and he  _ loves  _ the idea of falling asleep here with the two of them), Tetsurou doesn’t suggest that they go to bed.

The movie, a rerun of some Studio Ghibli movie that he doesn’t recognize, plays on in the background and casts a blue light upon the trio. It’s quiet, but it’s enough to lull Eri into sleep, and Tetsurou maneuvers her so that she’s in the crook of the arm Kenma isn’t lying against.

Kenma follows in her footsteps a few moments leader, head lulling slightly to the side. Tetsurou’s arms are both trapped, one holding Eri and one under Kenma’s arm, and he  _ knows  _ that because of the position he’s in, he’s bound to be stiff when he wakes up in the morning.

He falls asleep to pleasant thoughts, to the credits on the movie – he  _ still  _ never figures out was it is – rolling, and to his best friend’s and his daughter’s quiet breaths mingling.

He could stay here forever

* * *

 

Thursday is gray. It’s gray and cold, four degrees below zero, and it’s snowing. Tetsurou is going to be late for work.

“You can stay if you want,” he tells Kenma, who is sitting on his couch. “I’m going to drop Eri off and I have to stay at work until — ”

“You should go,” Kenma says. “You’re frazzled and late.”

Tetsurou pauses. 

His friend is unmoving. “Do you want me to bring her to your neighbor’s?”

“I.. Do you mind?”

In lieu of a response, Kenma takes the infant away from Tetsurou’s arms, urging him out the door.

Tetsurou doesn’t have too many tasks for that workday, which is somewhat relieving. As he walks to the train, the mental list in his head grows, though; he’s mostly wrapping up some loose ends, and if all is smooth sailing, he can probably be on the train home by three o’clock.

The knowledge that Kenma is waiting back at his apartment is enough to encourage productivity that is far beyond his usual level. Even his co-workers comment on his unusually motivated attitude, and he actually leaves the office around 2:30. It’s all small victories. 

As Tetsurou rides the train home, his gaze wanders to the other passengers; a college-aged girl to his right, several others that look about his age, and a family  — a mother, father, and child, who he guesses to be just around Eri’s age.

His smile is a bit sad, stays just at surface level. He half wonders if he and Aiko could have made it work, and then recalls the circumstances, recalls how they’d  _ tried  _ to make it work for the large majority of Aiko’s pregnancy, and comes to the ultimate conclusion that it was doomed from day one.

There’s Kenma, too, which is another reason that he and Aiko definitely can’t be together. His friend is responsible for the deep ache settling in Tetsurou’s chest, cushioning his heart, making him feel full and empty all at once. Tetsurou could never actually make things work with somebody else, not when Kenma is  _ Kenma  _ and not when Tetsurou loves him so much.

Things might have been different, had Tetsurou and Aiko never crossed paths (or - and he feels  _ very  _ guilty for thinking this - if they had never had a child). He and Kenma might have gotten an apartment together, might have gotten together themselves, might have had something… greater than what they do.

It’s not that their current arrangement isn’t enough, because it definitely is, and Tetsurou thinks he might just die without Kenma, in fact. He’s always aching for more, more touches, more closeness,  more of everything.

The train lurches to a stop and Tetsurou lurches forward with it, steps off and onto the platform into the cold November air. 

Eri is thrilled to see him when he arrives back to his neighbor’s apartment. She notes that Kenma came later than was usual for Kuroo; when he asks how late, he realizes that Kenma spent an  _ hour  _ with her after he left. He could die at that thought, if he tried hard enough.

He tucks her in the crook of his elbow, legs on either side of his waist, and presses a kiss atop her head. He makes every effort not to disturb her too much as he ascends the staircase to the third floor.

“Home sweet home,” he tells her upon walking into the empty apartment. The three throw pillows on the couch are neatly put away, two in one corner and one in the other, and the left side of the sink is full of clean dishes. Kenma did  _ not  _ have to do that.

Tetsurou is still dressed in his work clothes, sleeves rolled up to just above his elbows. He’ll change into pajamas later, presumably after giving Eri a bath, but it’s fine enough for now.

“We’re going to have a good night,” he promises his daughter, setting her down on the green playmat. She gazes up at him through blue eyes, and though he knows her eyesight is barely developed enough to make him out, he offers her a warm smile. 

It’s lonesome, but he’s used to it. Eri makes a clumsy grab at one of the toys that dangles above her, though it just swings back into place. Tetsurou tugs it down within her reach, though after another moment, it slips away from her tiny hands.

Tetsurou just observes, legs crossed. Eri rolls so that she’s on her stomach (Tetsurou can’t help but feel proud when he thinks about how much difficulty she used to have doing that.)

It’s not having fun, exactly, but it’s something. Eri is months away from talking words, let alone sentences. Even then, it won’t be conversation. Nonetheless, he talks to her often.

“You’re pretty drooly, huh?” he asks. The fronts of her shirts, dresses, and bibs are perpetually wet. It’s the kind of thing Tetsurou would have found gross before he had her. Truthfully, he  _ still  _ finds it kind of gross, but it’s different. She’s his. 

“It’s only going to get more intense from here, you know. I was reading about this. You’ll get  _ teeth _ , Eri! What do you think of that?”

Bemused, Tetsurou’s daughter lets her legs kick out behind her. She smiles at him, another offending string of drool falling from her bottom lip.

Tetsurou decides it’s bedtime, then, for both of them.

* * *

 

“He watched her the other day, for an  _ hour, _ ” Tetsurou says, still half amazed by that fact himself.

There’s a hum on the other end of the phone, more uninterested than anything.

“Kenma,” he stresses. “Kenma doesn’t like kids, and he watched mine for an  _ hour _ . That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

The voice on the other end deadpans. If possible, he’s even less interested than he had been before. “It doesn’t,” he says. “And if this is a thinly veiled attempt to get  _ me  _ to babysit, I’m not going to do that.”

“You are  _ no  _ help,” Tetsurou says woefully, looking up momentarily to where Eri is sleeping across from him.

“Don’t you have a child to watch? Maybe you should do that,” Tsukishima suggests. Tetsurou is almost certain he hears a yawn at the end.

“She’s asleep,” he says, defensive. She has been for an hour and a half - Tetsurou doesn’t even know what to do with the spare time allotted, but the web article he’d consulted had explained that she was undergoing a growth spurt, causing her to sleep in much longer stretches than usual. (He’d be lying if he said he doesn’t appreciate the extra sleep allowed on his part.)

“I’m sure you have something you can do while she sleeps,” he says. “So, I’m going to go.”

“Harsh, Tsukki,” Tetsurou says, shaking his head. (And, as it turns out, Tsukishima doesn’t even hear it, because the line goes dead halfway through the sentence.)

* * *

 

“I can’t help but be nervous,” Tetsurou admits, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. He crosses his legs, knee against Kenma’s thigh, and adjusts Eri so that she sits up across his other leg. He’s trying his best to keep her awake for the time being, just to make things easier on Aiko.

“She’s going to do fine,” Kenma reassures, tucking his hair behind his ear. “She’s Aiko’s child, too.” He says this matter-of-factly, probably not trying to be reassuring. (Even so, Tetsurou finds himself relaxing slightly.)

“She’s only been away from me overnight twice,” he says.

“It’s a good thing,” Kenma says, shrugging. “You probably need it more than Eri does, though.”

“I do not,” Tetsurou denies.

“You do, Kuro. It’s  _ good  _ for you to have a break from all this.”

“For two nights,” Kuroo sighs.

Kenma shuffles slightly, breaking the contact. “You liked her enough to have a baby with her,” he points out with an innocent cock of his head. He does  _ not  _ sound resentful — Tetsurou is definitely reading into his tone too much.

“I know I did,” Tetsurou admits. They both ignore the pink flush on his cheeks. He doesn’t often think about what lead to them having Eri, exactly. He’d barely dated her two months before they found out that they were going to be parents, and there hadn’t been an immense emotional connection there.

Tetsurou has only felt that immense emotional connection with one person, but —

The buzzer sounds, alerting him to a guest at the front door. Eri shifts, restless, and lets out a quiet whine.

“ _ Go _ ,” Kenma urges. “She’ll be fine.”

Tetsurou repeats this, mostly  — no, definitely, trying to reassure himself. 

Once more, the buzzer sounds, and Tetsurou opens the door, more uneasy than anything. The unease is useless, silly; that’s what he tells himself. Aiko is more than capable of caring for his child,  _ their  _ child. 

“Hi, Kuroo,” she greets, stepping through the threshold and into the apartment. “Thanks for letting me take her on such short notice. I really do appreciate it.”

“It’s no problem,” Tetsurou says, as if he hadn’t spent the past two and a half hours in a state of unease. “I tried to keep her up for you, but she’s getting pretty cranky, so—”

“I’ll get her to sleep first thing, then,” Aiko promises, tucking a short strand of hair behind her ear.

“Yeah, that’s good,” Tetsurou agrees. There’s an awkward pause, and he knows that he should be handing their daughter over, but he can’t quite bring himself to do that.

Kenma coughs from across the room, prompting Tetsurou to offer Aiko an apologetic smile.

“She doesn’t like to fall asleep alone, so you’ll have to stay with her until she does.”

“I’ll get her back to you in one piece,” she assures, settling the six month old against one hip. “Promise.”

“I’ll come get her Sunday morning, then.”

“Don’t worry too much,” Aiko says, eyes crinkled slightly at the corners.

* * *

 

“Is it strange to be worrying this much?” Tetsurou asks with a quiet sigh, settling his weight into Kenma’s familiar couch. The time Tetsurou has spent in this apartment has decreased greatly in the past six months, though everything is achingly familiar, almost painfully so.

“To an extent,” Kenma admits, shrugging.  “Aiko is smart, so you have nothing to be worried about.”

When Tetsurou frowns, Kenma tacks on “But, it makes sense, since you’re with Eri so often.” He’s right. Of course he’s right, because he’s objective to their situation. He’s both reassured Tetsurou and given him some harsh (but much needed) advice over the past six months.

Tetsurou doesn’t reply, but tugs the throw blanket on Kenma’s lap so that it rests across both of them; Tetsurou also shifts closer to Kenma so that their shoulders touch, and lets his hand come to rest on Tetsurou’s knee. 

“We could watch a movie,” Kenma suggests, already reaching for his laptop from where it sits on the coffee table. “I don’t know the last time we watched a movie without interruption.”

Tetsurou offers an apologetic smile, but it’s lost as Kenma sets the laptop up, the opening credits just beginning to roll. Against his better judgement, when Kenma leans back into the couch, Tetsurou lets his head rest against Kenma’s shoulder.

If Kenma minds, he certainly doesn’t say anything, and Tetsurou is certainly not going to take it back. It’s a consolation prize of sorts; he knows that it is infeasible for their relationship to progress beyond what it is, now, but this is  _ nice.  _

Slightly dazed with sleep, Tetsurou laces his fingers in with Kenma’s, giving a gentle squeeze.

“Kuro,” Kenma warns. He makes no move to take his hand away, though, and Tetsurou lets his attention come back to the movie. 

“Would you do this if Eri were here?” Kenma asks, quiet.

Suddenly, Tetsurou is all too aware of their contact points— thighs, fingers, Tetsurou’s head to Kenma’s shoulder.

“Probably not, no,” he admits. On screen, a sailboat sinks and Tetsurou’s heart does, too.

“Then—” Kenma removes his hand from Tetsurou’s grasp, lets his fingers splay out onto his knee. He elaborates, “You can’t pretend she’s not real just because she’s not  _ here,  _ Kuro.”

Tetsurou sinks back into the right side of the couch, effectively breaking those three contact points. “I know,” he says, voice barely audible over the movie.

Since he’d rather have Kenma here as friends than not at all, Tetsurou lets his focus fall entirely on the movie. (It’s difficult to understand, because he’d paid little attention to the first half an hour, but he still tries.)

* * *

 

When Tetsurou wakes the next morning, the first thing he does is reach out to see if Eri is asleep next to him. The second thing he does is sigh when he recalls her whereabouts and pull Kenma’s throw blanket up and over his nose, eyes still tightly shut. Kenma’s couch is comfortable, worn in, and his cat sleeps on the back, paying no mind to Tetsurou.

Water runs somewhere down the hallway, and Tetsurou knows that his friend is awake. His morning routine has had little variance since they were teenagers. At any moment, he’ll come down the hallway and start breakfast, no doubt.

Tetsurou stretches up, grimacing as his back cracks. He hasn’t noticed, necessarily, until having Eri, how much of a morning person he  _ isn’t _ , though she’s forced him to adapt that aspect of his personality to accommodate her.

As if on cue, Kenma makes his way down the hallway, uttering a small noise of surprise at Tetsurou’s half awake state.

“You slept okay?” he asks. After a moment of fiddling with the speaker, music begins to fill the kitchen, and the apartment seems to come alive.

“I did, yeah; your couch is absurdly soft.” He knows Kenma’s bed is softer, though; he’s spent many nights in that bed, arm draped over Kenma, sleeping into the late hours of morning.

Last night is the first time he’s slept on the couch. By no coincidence, last night is the first night he’s slept over since having Eri. Tetsurou would be a fool or painfully oblivious or  _ something, _ not to see the correlation between the two.

“And you?” Tetsurou asks, finally standing from the couch.  Kenma looks so young, so soft, that Tetsurou could just melt into a puddle then and there, probably, never to be seen or heard from again. 

Kenma’s hair is gathered into a bun at the top of his head, though a few pieces stick out from the hair tie, and his old volleyball t-shirt hangs off his shoulders, ‘ _ Kozume’  _ emblazoned across the back in red lettering. It’s almost like when Tetsurou used to meet him before school.  _ Almost _ .

Tetsurou does a poor job at stifling a yawn, and shuffles across to where the mugs are kept. Upon opening the cabinet, though, he’s met with a stack of dinner plates.

“Two cabinets to the left,” Kenma says. His voice is slightly muffled as he stands in front of the fridge, but Tetsurou makes it out fine. “I moved some stuff around.”

Tetsurou retrieves two and sets about making coffee for both of them. It’s almost monotonous, the way he does this, but he supposes that it’s only normal. He’s probably made hundreds of cups of coffee for Kenma alone over the years.

“I’m taking Eri to the museum next Saturday,” Tetsurou says over breakfast. The sunlight, however minimal, highlights a golden halo around Kenma’s head as he nods. “If you’d like to come, you’re welcome.” The unspoken, ‘ _you’re always welcome_ ,’ lingers unsaid but understood.

“Maybe,” Kenma answers, nonchalant. 

Tetsurou doesn’t expect Kenma to come, exactly, but it’ll be a welcome surprise if he does. It allows for Tetsurou to maintain this carefully constructed pseudo-family illusion he’s built up over the past six months,

He maintains it, just so, so that it doesn’t crumble. Eri is his, completely. Kenma has never had any interest in, nor has he ever  _ pretended  _ to have any interest in being any sort of a father to Eri. Tetsurou would only ever be setting himself up for disappointment if he placed this expectation on his friend.

“You’re a good dad,” Kenma says suddenly, voice slightly muffled by the mug in front of his face.

Tetsurou lets out a slight laugh at that. “Not many people seem to think so, lately.”

“But you keep going. That’s what makes you good.”

* * *

 

Tetsurou is not shocked— moreso relieved —when Eri returns to him just as happy as she’d been when he’d handed her over begrudgingly. It was a mere two days apart, but when Aiko hands her back, Tetsurou doesn’t think he could handle putting her down for a month, maybe even two.

Loving someone this completely has, for most of his life, been completely foreign to Tetsurou, which is likely part of the reason he steps back from Aiko when she explains that she’d like Eri next weekend as well, because of her school’s semester break. He can’t reasonably turn her down, since there’s zero feasible reason that she  _ can’t  _ take Eri. Still, Tetsurou can’t help the lingering sadness in his chest when he agrees to her proposition.

 

It dawns on him later that night (when he’s in the middle of changing Eri on the floor, nonetheless), that part of the reason for his sadness is that they won’t be able to go to the museum as planned. Weekends are a much needed break from his job, allowing him to spend more time with Eri than merely getting her awake and getting her ready for bed.

And Aiko certainly doesn’t mean harm in the slightest; it’s  _ good  _ that she wants Eri, too, but Tetsurou wishes that she’d do it at a time more conducive to Kenma accompanying both Tetsurou  _ and  _ Eri to the museum — to anywhere, really.

Tetsurou quickly snaps back into reality when Eri gives a particularly excited squeal, attempting to roll mid-change. He quickly finds it within himself to wrap up and get her situated. They could both use an early night, anyway.


	2. fragility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuroo doesn't know how to put the pieces back together if they were never completely broken. Of course, that doesn't stop him from trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote most of this while listening to the album everything in transit by jack's mannequin and let me tell you, it was an emotional roller coaster.  
> hope you all enjoy!! :')

Tetsurou is stupid. Stupid, irresponsible, or  _ something _ . His inner monologue tells him he’s playing a dangerous game, that getting his hopes up is foolish for everybody. His inner monologue sounds suspiciously like Sawamura, who has given him similar advice in the past. At least half a dozen times.

Still, the morning time has a tendency to be especially peaceful; with his daughter and Kenma at the kitchen table, there’s some semblance of a family, even if it’s only an illusion.

“She’s such a morning person,” Kenma remarks, casting the six month old a cautious gaze. “Are we absolutely sure she’s yours?”

“Mean, Kenma. You’re so mean. And if you’ll note her impressive bedhead, I think you’ll find your question answered.” Tetsurou teases back, pausing to wipe absently at Eri’s chin. She’s only recently started joining him in meals, and hasn’t mastered the art of getting her food  _ in  _ her mouth.

She looks cute doing it, though, so Tetsurou puts up with the mess and the numerous baths she requires as of late. 

They’re just beginning to wrap up their late breakfast, Kenma lazily pushing around the last few scraps of food on his plate and Tetsurou starting to clean up Eri’s high chair. Tetsurou knows that the food has long since gone cold. His has, too.

“We could go to the museum today, if you want,” Tetsurou suddenly suggests.

When Kenma casts him a confused glance, Tetsurou backpedals. “Aiko is taking her again this weekend because her parents, so I wouldn’t be able to take her then. I don’t work today, so I thought—”

“Which museum?” Kenma asks, tentative. He stands from the table, remnants of breakfast left on the center of the plate. There's a ring on the table from the condensation on his water glass.

“I was thinking about the art museum.”

Kenma teases, “I’m sure a six month old would really appreciate the fine arts.”

Tetsurou shrugs. “It’s good for her senses. And, it’s free admission today.”

“I’ll go, then,” Kenma decides, glancing over his shoulder.

"I'll get her dressed, then," Tetsurou says coyly. "We'll only be a few minutes."

"I'll be here."

Tetsurou snorts at that, not bothering with an reply.

* * *

 

They fall into step as they walk down the sidewalk, past the train station and down towards the art museum. The sun peeks out from behind a cloud just barely, like the promise of warm weather. Eri blinks up at Tetsurou, no doubt soothed by the rocking motion of his walking, and lets her head settle just against his chest after he returns a smile and smooths down the top of her tufts of dark hair. 

Kenma is quiet, as per usual, but seems more at ease than he had been the weekend prior in his apartment. Tetsurou has observed that he seems more — relaxed, perhaps, when they’re not completely alone. He doesn’t think that it’s Eri’s presence that calms Kenma, necessarily, though he has yet to figure out exactly why this seems to be the pattern. There are, of course, exceptions to this, as there are to most anything, but they're rare and they certainly aren't that day.

As they step through the threshold of the museum, Tetsurou feels inclined to turn to Kenma and thank him for coming along with the two of them. Even if it’s foolish, even if it’s only a small kernel of hope or  _ something,  _ Tetsurou doesn’t have anything that doesn’t pale in comparison to the three of them spending time together. (Or, perhaps, to Kenma actually  _willingly_ spending time around Eri, as few and far between as that may be.)

“The modern art wing is this way,” Tetsurou points a finger gingerly upwards, eyeing the sprawling marble of the staircase. To their left is the statue room, though the ever curious six month old might not be well-suited to a room full of fragile statues.

They make their way dutifully up to the modern wing. Tetsurou removes Eri from the carrier on his chest so that she can look along with them; it’s not as if she’s going to appreciate the art, but at least Tetsurou can feel like he’s enriching her.

As they walk, Eri propped up on Tetsurou’s right hip, he lets his fingertips brush up against Kenma’s. When his friend doesn’t react, Tetsurou takes a metaphorical step forward and intertwines their fingers, lightly squeezing Kenma’s in his own.

“That one’s nice,” Kenma observes, quiet. It’s a brightly colored piece, and they can truly take time to admire it, since nobody stands near by. A small cluster of people gather in front of a painting adjacent to them, mumbling amongst themselves and taking the occasional picture.

“I think Eri likes it,” Tetsurou laughs as the infant leans forward from his arms, waving a hand excitedly at the canvas. “Do you think we should take it home?” he asks her, as if it’s a very serious question.

Kenma laughs — quiet, but he does all the same. In that moment, Tetsurou knows he should be looking at the art lining the walls, but he finds himself unable (or, perhaps unwilling), to look away from him.

When his friend suddenly turns to face him, Tetsurou diverts his attention back to Eri. He suspects that Kenma notices, but neither of them mention it. Instead, Tetsurou fusses with Eri’s shirt collar and Kenma frees his hand to fish his phone from his back pocket. 

Beside them, a parent attempts to corral their rowdy child, and Tetsurou is exceedingly glad his own is behaving. She’s fighting sleep — one moment, her eyes drift shut and her head falls against Tetsurou’s chest, only to be picked back up a moment later as she stares up at him through long lashes and tired eyes.

“You can sleep,” he tells her, as if she understands. He excuses himself to get her situated in the carrier that his mother had gifted him shortly before her granddaughter’s arrival. 

His heartbeat has always calmed Eri, in some strange way. She falls asleep with ease, cheek pressed to the cottony fabric of his t-shirt, and Tetsurou makes his way back to where Kenma stands, this time in front of a more subdued but equally as stunning canvas.

“I was looking at the map,” Kenma hums. “They have a garden outside, if you’d like to—”

“Fresh air would be really good,” Tetsurou agrees. He’s been here a few times before; on class trips, or in his adventures throughout the city, so the outdoor area is familiar to him. There’s a grassy area where the three of them can sit and a wildflower garden where butterflies flock in the summer months.

He walks evenly, keeping pace with Kenma while trying not to wake Eri, until they approach glass doors. It’s an environment he prefers much to the inside of the museum, he thinks to himself. There are no security guards, no groups of people crowding and bumping into one and other. It’s quiet, just the three of them. 

Eri remains asleep. Her occasional twitching movements or soft sigh keep her presence at the forefront of Tetsurou’s mind, though he smiles when he realizes that this is almost the way it used to be.

Granted, Tetsurou and Kenma did  _ not  _ hang out in museum courtyards in high school, and granted Eri was never even thought of back in high school, but it’s reminiscent, and makes Tetsurou feel warmth in the pit of his chest — it’s pride, almost, but not quite so.

“This was a good idea,” he praises, settling down on one of three available benches. “I’m really glad you came.” He pauses, letting his gaze shift down to the infant on his chest. “Eri is, too, but she can’t exactly express that.”

Kenma laughs, slightly dry. “I’ll take your word for it.”

* * *

 

When Tetsurou puts Eri down for her evening nap, he lingers just slightly longer than usual, not exactly to make sure that she’s asleep, but merely admiring her. One hand grips the rail of her crib and the other traces the curve of her cheek gingerly. 

He steps away a moment later, switches the light off, and closes the door behind him, plunging the bedroom into darkness. 

There’s a faint sigh from down the hallway, and then the tv channel switches, and again once more.

“Nothing good on?” Tetsurou asks, and Kenma jumps slightly.

“No.”

Tetsurou settles beside Kenma, sinking slightly back into the couch cushions. Whatever’s on screen fades into nothing, and Tetsurou casts a look around his living room. It’s underwhelming in its entirety; there’s a broken blind on the window beside the television where light streams in throughout the day, and there are shelves to their left piled with books and baby toys alike.

The couch they’re sitting on is probably the nicest thing in this room (in this  _ apartment _ , probably), because his father had purchased it for him when he moved into his first apartment. It had fit significantly better in that space, simply because there was  _ more  _ space. In his current apartment, it’s over-sized at best, but worn-in and comfortable, so it stays.

“Bokuto texted me,” Tetsurou says suddenly, snapping out of his daze. “He wants to come visit this weekend.”

“Akaashi, too?” Kenma asks, stifling a yawn.

“Akaashi, too,” Tetsurou affirms. “They were going to come Friday and stay through Sunday.” The timing is impeccable, since Aiko is going to have Eri for Saturday. It’s not often (only twice since Eri was born), that both Bokuto and Akaashi have been able to visit together, and while Tetsurou’s apartment may be small, it can accommodate both of them all the same.

“Bokuto will be happy to see Eri,” Tetsurou says, decisive. His friend has a perpetual childlike excitement about him, unique to most of the people that interact with Eri on a regular basis.

She likes Bokuto, Tetsurou thinks proudly, and Bokuto likes her too. It’s a far cry from the uncomfortable demeanor Kenma takes on suddenly, when Tetsurou mentions her.

Tetsurou sighs, then, forcing himself to stop trying to draw a comparison between Kenma and Bokuto. It certainly must be easier to feel fond towards your friend’s child when there are not so many levels to the friendship. He understands this, on some level.

And, at some point, he and Kenma had been in limbo — friends, but on the cusp of something more. They had been friends, easily mistaken for something more. Friends, but almost  _ almost  _ more. For months, for  _years_ , they had skated a thin line, never daring to cross.

And so, it is unfair to draw a comparison there, so Tetsurou tries not to.

He doesn’t bring up Eri again, half because he’s too tired from their day trip into the city and half because he knows Kenma will be uncomfortable, and he’s  _ not  _ going to be the one to cause Kenma’s discomfort. He can’t be.

“Are you staying over tonight?” he asks, breaking their somewhat comfortable silence. If Kenma plans on leaving soon, he’s going to have to rush to make the last bus. Tetsurou hopes he stays, sincerely.

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” Kenma says, shrugging. 

 Tetsurou doesn’t push the issue. He doesn’t voice any disappointment, just stands from the couch to retrieve blankets from his bedroom closet.

“It should be enough,” he says when he returns with three folded up blankets. “Plus, I just ran down to the laundromat yesterday, so they’re nice and clean.” He pauses tentatively, a bit unsure when Kenma doesn’t reach to take them from him. He sets them down on the side table.

“You seem pretty tired, so I’ll leave you be. If you need anything—“ he breaks off, waiting for his friend to complete his sentence.

“I know where to find it,” Kenma says, decisively. “Good night, Kuro.”

Tetsurou has a hard time wiping the smile off of his face as he settles under his covers that night.

* * *

 

“Aiko,” Tetsurou greets, blinking in the golden of the morning sun. He’s had no more than three seconds to wake himself up and take her call, voice still deep from sleep.

Her concern is evident even over the slight static of the phone. “Did I wake you?” She pauses for a moment, sighing. “I tried to wait until I thought Eri would have woken you, but I have class—” 

“I was awake,” Tetsurou lies. He spares his alarm clock a glance; it reads 7:42. He pushes it so that the glaring red numbers face the wall instead of him.

Aiko breathes what seems to be a sigh of relief. “Oh, good,” she says. “I  _ did  _ have a reason to call, by the way. My parents are going to be in town this weekend, as you know.”

“Right.”

“They’d like to take you out to dinner on Sunday, since they haven’t seen you since she was just born. I know you…”

Her voice fades into nothing, then, in favor of a dull hum. It’s almost like Tetsurou attended a concert last night and hasn’t quite regained full hearing.

“So? What do you say?” She does  _ not  _ sound hopeful, Tetsurou tells himself. He grimaces.

Tetsurou racks his brain for any excuse — work, doctor’s appointment, running errands, or  _ something _ .

“Okay,” he says instead. He’s twenty and he’s a  _ dad  _ and if he can force himself to endure for two hours. For Eri, only, because everything these days is for her. Everything he  _ is  _ is for her.

“I’ll still come to pick her up Saturday morning, but I really do appreciate you doing this, Kuroo.”

“It’s nothing,” Tetsurou says. (Now, he just has to convince himself that that’s true.)

* * *

 

There’s a crack in the lamp on the end table beside Tetsurou’s couch. Light shines through the small chip he had been unable to repair, casting a small triangle of light on the wall opposite both him and the lamp itself. 

It hadn’t been cracked when he purchased it, but during the peak of his and Bokuto’s rambunctious college days, it had been cracked and repaired with super glue from the Lawson down the street, never quite the way it had looked when he purchased it. He doesn't mind this. He half wonders if it’s going to break again today, because Bokuto is boisterous and he talks with his hands, and if he doesn’t break something by the time he’s gone, Tetsurou will be shocked.

Tetsurou isn’t sure why he trusts Bokuto with his daughter when he can’t even trust him with a 2,200 yen lamp, but he does, somehow. Bokuto looks at her with the utmost admiration, wide eyed and smiling.

“She’s such a show-off,” Tetsurou chuckles, gazing on as Eri grins back at their company. “She is  _ never  _ this good for me.”

“She  _ loves _ me,” Proclaims Bokuto. “She knows to behave for me, because she knows I’m the best.”

Tetsurou snorts at that, unable to stop himself. “If she likes anybody best, it’s definitely the one who’s up with her all night long. But, if you’d like to take my spot, then by all means.”

Bokuto responds with a laugh of his own. “I’ll pass,” he declares, pausing thoughtfully. After a contemplative moment, he turns to face Eri outwards. “If Akaashi and I ever became parents, our—”

Akaashi cuts him off with a warning gaze. “Nobody would trust us with a child, Bokuto.” 

Tetsurou has a sneaking suspicion that what Akaashi really means is that nobody would trust Bokuto with a baby, but holds off saying this for the sake of Bokuto’s ego.

“I’m a med student,” Akaashi elaborates when Bokuto frowns. “We can barely handle having our  _ cat _ with my schedule.”

“One day,” Bokuto says, wistful.

Akaashi gives: “maybe,” though when Bokuto raises an eyebrow, he simply shakes his head.

“We will,” Bokuto declares. “We’re going to be the coolest dads  _ ever _ .”

“Ouch,” Tetsurou says, placing a hand over his heart to feign hurt. He stands a moment later when somebody raps twice against the door.

“Kenma!” he greets. A puzzled expression crosses his face a moment later. “You have keys, don’t you?”

“I left them at my apartment,” Kenma admits. “And I didn’t just want to barge in.”

He takes the seat farthest from Bokuto and Eri, and closest to Tetsurou, giving an involuntary full-body shudder.

“It’s unseasonably cold,” he answers upon receiving three questioning looks. “And I missed my bus stop, so I had to walk extra.”

They fall into an easy routine then, just like it had been two and three and four years ago when they were all in high school, and Tetsurou definitely does  _ not  _ have to hold back a wince when Bokuto laces his fingers through Akaashi’s. (Really. He does  _ not _ .)

“She looks so much like you, Kuroo,” Akaashi states plainly, gazing slightly over Bokuto’s bicep. Tetsurou can’t help but think they must be uncomfortable — Akaashi’s elbow must be pressing into his side due to the way he leans on Bokuto, and Tetsurou  _ knows _ , absolutely knows, that Bokuto’s arm must be falling asleep because of Eri, but neither of them make a move to adjust. They appear just as in love as they had been in high school, or perhaps even more so.

“You think?” Tetsurou asks. From his position, he can only see Eri’s hair sticking up over Bokuto’s elbow, but he’s certain he has every detail of her face memorized by now. If he closes his eyes, he can picture it perfectly.

“Definitely,” Akaashi affirms. “She already has your bedhead, the poor thing.”

Just then, Kenma looks up from his phone to snort at Akaashi’s remark, the two sharing a mischievous glance.

“College student Akaashi is  _ brutal _ !” Tetsurou exclaims, once more feigning hurt. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Oh, he does. I don’t know if it’s because he’s so tired from being in med school, but he’s ruthless. Completely and totally ruthless," Bokuto agrees.

“Something like that,” says Akaashi.  He winces slightly when Eri gives a sudden whine of discomfort, high-pitched and prolonged.

“She wants you to put her down. She’s getting restless,” Tetsurou says. It doesn’t even dawn on him that they wouldn’t know exactly what all of her different whines mean, because it’s  _ so  _ second nature to him.

He’s only half present in the conversation, with most of his focus on Eri and making certain that she keeps out of trouble, which is surprisingly difficult. Considering that she’s only six months old; she’s into everything, it seems, except for the things which belong to her.

“She might have a death wish,” Tetsurou says as she reaches a hand towards Akaashi’s phone charger. He swiftly picks her back up, paying little mind to her pitiful cries. 

Kenma gives a pained look at the sudden increase in noise on Eri’s part, one which Tetsurou chooses pointedly to ignore in favor of standing and walking her down the hallway. 

It must be getting late, anyway, because the noise level from outside has died down and the streetlights have clicked on, glowing yellow through the broken blind. Tetsurou has to get her down to bed, anyway.

“You’ve got quite the attitude, sunshine,” he tells her behind his closed bedroom door. “All because I won’t let you touch the phone chargers.” He tuts slightly, though there is absolutely  _ no  _ animosity on his part. He doesn’t think he’s ever spoken to her with anything other than admiration.

Caring for her — soothing her, rocking her, it all comes easily to him. He had spent the majority of the nine months leading up to her birth worrying about how exactly he would manage being a parent, especially with the lack of parental guidance he had had as a child, but it’s surprisingly simple to him. He feels foolish, almost, for ever worrying about it.

Eri’s eyes begin to shut. Tetsurou has no doubt that the company has tired her out; guests are rare, and besides Kenma and Eri’s mother, their only semi-regular visitor is Tetsurou’s sister. 

He stands, ever so careful, and sets her in the crib opposite his bed, and only once he’s double (and triple) checked that she’s asleep, he makes his way back down the hallway.

“We’re ordering food,” Bokuto tells him, over the screen of what is  _ definitely  _ Tetsurou’s laptop. 

“And?” Akaashi prompts.

“Nothing,” Bokuto denies. “Nothing else.” (Tetsurou has a sneaking suspicion that this is untrue.)

“He’s texting Tsukishima,” Akaashi says, sighing. “I told him not to.”

“Tsukki won’t initiate the conversation, but he doesn’t mind.” Bokuto sounds suspiciously like he’s trying to convince himself that this statement is true. He closes the lid of Tetsurou’s laptop and leans back into the couch, eyeing where his phone sits on the arm.

“Tsukishima definitely minds,” Kenma says. “I don’t know how you came to a different conclusion, but he  _ definitely  _ does.”

Tetsurou shrugs. “He never wants to talk, Bokuto. I called him the other day, and he was remarkably uninterested.” He pauses as he droops his shoulders slightly in a poor attempt to impersonate Tsukishima. “Don’t you have a daughter, Kuroo? Shouldn’t you take care of her?” he mimics. 

Bokuto’s shoulders slump as well. “He’s probably not going to answer.”

“He’s probably with Yamaguchi,” Tetsurou consoles. This does little to console Bokuto, though he perks up easily when Tetsurou’s buzzer sounds, alerting them to the arrival of their food; their conversation is quickly abandoned in favor of dinner, leaving Tsukishima all but forgotten. (He never does text back, anyway.

* * *

 

Tetsurou has grown accustomed to sharing his bed. Eri rarely sleeps in her crib (or, perhaps Tetsurou would rather have her beside him), and long before her arrival, Kenma kept the left side of Tetsurou’s bed warm.

He has a double bed, which is more than large enough for him to sprawl out as much as he would like to — in theory. Instead, he stays to the right. The couch in his certainly not large enough to sleep two comfortably, but Bokuto and Akaashi, after calling it a night, had decided to attempt sleeping together, anyway. 

He waits up for Kenma, walking the length of his bedroom with Eri nestled against his chest. The telltale sound of water rushing through the building’s old pipes tells him that Kenma is still in the shower; he won’t be out for another ten minutes, at least.

Tetsurou has walked this exact length  of times, has worn the wooden floorboards down, has scanned every centimeter of this small (yet, shockingly, somehow just large  _ enough  _ bedroom) thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands of times. He knows everything about this room, from the tear in the curtain to each divot in the floor, even the precise way his books are stacked.

The noise halts suddenly, and some fixture in the building seems to grown. The noises of the apartment building are nothing new to him — he’s been here two years, almost.

A decision faces him. Eri sleeps in his arms, cheeks flushed pink and fists curled tight. He could keep her in bed with him. With  _ them _ . Kenma would never say anything, albeit the discomfort he would certainly feel. Tetsurou can count the amount of times that Kenma has slept in bed with both of them on one hand.

He stands over the crib, contemplating for a moment. The mobile stands unmoving, below his eye level. When he lets out a deep sigh, one of the dangling clouds sways. He smooths down the top of Eri’s hair to the best of his ability, sets her down on the white mattress, and steps away.

“I love you,” he tells her, backing up until the edge of his mattress hits the backs of his legs, and he sinks into it, lying down and gazing up at the ceiling.

His head turns when the door where Kenma stands creaks open. He sports one of Tetsurou’s shirts (which, for the record, he had  _ not  _ asked to borrow) and yellow boxer shorts, hair pulled into a loose bun atop his head. A few strands hang down from the nape of his neck.

“I might have used all the hot water,” he says, slightly guilty.

“When my neighbors come for me, I’ll be sure to point them in your direction.”

Kenma snorts. “Do  _ not _ .” He makes himself comfortable on Tetsurou’s bed, atop the comforter.

“You’re going to drip,” Tetsurou chides.

“I toweled off,” Kenma says, giving a flippant flick of his wrist. “You worry too much.”

“I do not!” Tetsurou protests, affronted. He glances over to where Eri sleeps, and it dawns on him that perhaps the decision to sleep with Kenma rather than his own child doesn’t exactly put him up for father of the year. He doesn’t move, though.

“She might sleep through the night,” Tetsurou says. “She has a few times, lately.”

“I’m not getting up with her.” Kenma slips under the covers, patting the right side of the bed. “But, you should get some rest.”

When Tetsurou slips under the covers, he shifts so that his arm cocoons Kenma, his friend’s head against his chest. Kenma takes a sharp inhale, and for a fleeting moment, Tetsurou thinks he might protest, but— 

“Night, Kuro.”

“Night, Kenma,” he mirrors. And, for the second night in a row, Tetsurou has a hard time wiping the smile off of his face as he drifts into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this accidentally took me about 30 years to finish writing because i need it to all be perfect and i am terribly sorry for that;; part 3 should come quicker!!  
> i always appreciate feedback in the form of comments/kudos/bookmarks. & feel free to come shout about this fic on my [tumblr](www.kenmatetsu.tumblr.com) !! i'd love to talk


	3. inadequacy

When Tetsurou’s phone rings, he jolts out of his daze, sparing a sweeping glance across the kitchen. He doesn’t want to call what he feels when he reads the caller-id  _ disappointment _ , because that’s not entirely accurate. Kenma has no conceivable reason to call, and Tetsurou is reasonably certain he works today. Still, it’s remarkably difficult to get back into the groove of being alone after hosting three guests for the weekend. Tetsurou could certainly use the company.

“Aiko, hi,” he greets, leaning back against the counter. “Is everything okay with Eri?” His brow furrows and he grips his phone slightly tighter than usual, a knee-jerk reaction to the suddenness of the phone call.

Aiko assures, “perfectly fine,” with a slight lightness to her tone. 

In the background, Tetsurou makes out a giggle that  _ has  _ to belong to Eri, and lets out a deep sigh.

“I wanted to let you know about dinner tonight.” Dutifully, she begins to rattle off the details of their plans. On an entirely unrelated note, dread begins to fill the pit of Tetsurou’s stomach, and the palms of his hands clam up.

“Sounds great,” he manages. “It’ll be nice to see them.” Surely, it can’t be  _ that  _ bad. Surely, he’s overplaying it in his head.

“I really appreciate you doing this, Kuroo,” she says. “I really do.”

“It’s nothing,” Tetsurou says. “Don’t worry about it.”

Two hours will pass quickly. He has a series of mundane tasks to complete before heading out to the train station, more than enough to keep him busy — or, to keep his anxieties at bay, for the time being.

He sets his phone back down, plugs the charger into it, and, once more, gives a deep sigh.

Cleaning his kitchen is nowhere to be found on the list of things that interest Tetsurou, but he’s, at the very least, glad for the distraction, a reprieve from the trepidation and from the tension he feels everywhere from his shoulders down.

 

Getting dressed is  _ hard _ . He’s twenty years old, dresses his daughter and himself every day, and he’s never struggled this much to piece together something that looks even remotely okay.

He gives his reflection in the bathroom mirror a once-over, runs a hand through the tresses of black hair atop his head, and decides that this is as good as he’s going to get.

He wears his work clothes, which are sensible if nothing else, and pushes the sleeves up his forearms. He’s not satisfied, exactly, but even if it’s not good enough, it’s going to have to be if he wants to be on time.

The sky is light in color, almost mocking the dread he feels. Lilac fades into blue and white, though the sun is nowhere to be found. The streets of Tokyo are quieter than usual, and as Tetsurou boards the train, he fixes his gaze on a scuff on the floor.

Dutifully, the train lurches forward, and by the time his stop arrives, two strangers have settled beside him. One leans into his shoulder. He grimaces, not sparing her a second glance, and heads out into the station. Tetsurou almost wants to laugh when he steps outside once more to notice that the sky has darkened significantly, almost a testament to his demeanor.

 

“Hi!” Aiko greets him with a bright grin almost as soon as Tetsurou steps through the revolving doors of the restaurant. Since her parents are nowhere to be seen, he can only assume they’ve been seated. “I’m so glad you got here okay.”

“It wasn’t a bad trip,” Tetsurou assures, flashing a slight smile of his own. Perhaps, if it were  _ just  _ Aiko, this dinner wouldn’t be particularly nerve wracking, but as he steps towards the dining area, following her lead, Tetsurou is already beginning to regret coming.

“Ichiro-san,” he greets Aiko’s father, tone even. The harrowing gaze Ichiro offers does little to calm Tetsurou. Aiko’s mother has a slightly warmer demeanor, even if it’s only marginal, so— 

“Mariko-san, hello.”

“We’re glad you could make it tonight,” she says in lieu of a greeting, gesturing to the chair across the table. Beside her, Eri sits in a high chair, wearing clothes that Tetsurou certainly had not sent with her. He’s half tempted to reach across and pick her up, but refrains for the time being.

“It’s nice that you got to see her,” he says. “I’m sure she enjoyed herself.”

Aiko’s mother smiles, more curt than anything. “She did. I’m aware that during the day she’s used to being away from her family, so it must have been a nice change of pace.”

Tetsurou stiffens in his seat, bristling slightly. When the waitress approaches, he’s more than grateful for the interruption. He contemplates defending himself, because he  _ can’t  _ take Eri to his office and he can’t  _ not  _ work. Something tells him Aiko’s parents won’t care to hear him out.

“She does well while I’m at work,” he says simply. “My neighbor watches her, and she has children of her own.” He almost wants to spare Aiko a glance, as if asking her to help him out.

Mariko seems to soften slightly towards Tetsurou, though her mouth still remains pulled into a tight line. “You work within your means,” she agrees. Across the table, Eri whines and reaches towards him, brows furrowed in worry.

Tetsurou rushes to offer, “I’ll get her,” and pushes back from the table, eager for a distraction, however brief.

“I missed you,” he tells her almost silently, settling back into his seat. “I missed you so much.”

The empty time between ordering food and getting food is generally understood as pleasant, usually filled with lighthearted conversation and catching up, but there’s tension in the air and relaxation is the furthest thing from what Tetsurou feels. Nobody is outwardly hostile, but he  _ knows  _ that Aiko’s parents are calculating his every move, casting their silent judgements. For his sake, he hopes dinner passes quickly.

Ichiro clears his throat, and Tetsurou has to make a significant effort not to squirm under his gaze. He offers up a bright smile, which Ichiro does not reciprocate.

“Kuroo was telling me his office has a take your daughter to work day,” Aiko says suddenly, somewhat rushed. Tetsurou has a feeling she’s trying to lighten the mood.

“We do,” he agrees. “It’s in two weeks, and I think she’ll do well. Some of my coworkers have children around her age.”

Mariko nods, but Ichiro doesn’t move. Tetsurou wonders if he’s ever smiled in his life, but judging by the deep-set wrinkles in his forehead, he doubts it. Tetsurou thinks that Ichiro must have been a statue in his past life, and has to disguise his laugh behind a poor attempt at a cough when he visualizes this. 

“Remind me,” Ichiro says, and Tetsurou doesn’t dare meet his gaze, “what exactly is it that you do for work again.”

Tetsurou doesn’t think he’s ever felt so inadequate. “I work in sales — for a small business in Tokyo.” It’s humble, especially considering Aiko’s background; her parents met while both pursuing their doctorates and Aiko is in law school. Tetsurou hadn’t even been able to finish his degree.

“How modest,” Ichiro says, and Tetsurou has an inkling that he means ‘pathetic’ as opposed to modest, but doesn’t say so.

“It’s enough to support Eri and me. It pays the bills,” he counters. 

“You could always go back and get your degree,” Mariko points out. “If that’s something you’d like to do in the future.”

“I’m mostly just focused on her,” Tetsurou says. He’s six feet tall, and definitely has a few inches on  _ both  _ of Aiko’s parents, but he’s never felt so small in his life.

“That’s admirable,” Mariko agrees. Even if it’s only to keep the peace, Tetsurou smiles warmly at the praise.

When their food arrives moments later, Tetsurou is immensely grateful for the break from the conversation — though it feels more of an interrogation than anything. He’s not sure if the food will put anyone in a better mood, but it certainly doesn’t hurt anything.

And just as they’re finishing, Eri begins to fuss from tiredness. He’s sure to take the excuse to part ways earlier than planned, however slight that may be.

As he starts the walk back to the train station, infant on his hip, he hopes to whoever cares to listen that he doesn’t have to meet with Aiko’s parents again for a long while, if ever again.

* * *

 

Tetsurou calls out of work the next day, says that he has a virus and even throws in a cough at the end, just to seal the deal. He knows that his boss won’t be pleased, but when he wakes up and sees Eri sleeping beside him, he can’t find it within himself to feel guilty.

A voice in the back of his head nags, and it sounds suspiciously like Mariko (‘ _ during the day she’s used to being away from her family, so it must have been a nice change of pace’. _ ) Tetsurou does his best to ignore it as he gets Eri situated in the high chair across from his own, kettle boiling on the stove.

“You slept really well, didn’t you?” he asks her, eyeing her still flushed cheeks and tousled hair. “I’m glad, because I think we both needed a good night’s sleep.” He gives a mischievous grin before speaking again, as if he’s telling her a secret. “I bet you didn’t sleep as well without me, huh?”

There’s a strange serenity in his kitchen that morning, perhaps because he has nobody and nothing waiting on him, nowhere to be. Or, perhaps it’s because he has Eri back. He decides it’s a mix of the two, definitely. The window in the kitchen is cracked open and causes a slight draft, and Tetsurou contemplates taking Eri out to the park that afternoon after checking the weather. She can’t play much by herself, but there’s no reason he can’t take her out.

And, with the weather and his newfound day off, it’d be an awful shame to stay cooped up inside. He’ll take it step by step, then, and if a park day is in the cards for them, he’s more than willing to take her. 

He sets down his mug in front of his chair and sets a plastic bowl down, which Eri eyes with caution.

“Cereal,” he tells her. “You already like it, promise. You can even pick it up by yourself.” He picks this mostly because there’s minimal mess, and he could certainly use an easy morning after their dinner disaster the previous night. 

It dawns on him then, as he’s sitting on his thrifted dining chairs and watching his daughter (he’ll  _ never  _ get over the fact that he has a daughter), just how much she’s changed his life. It’s — it’s definitely for the better. 

He doesn’t get to sleep half — probably even a  _ quarter _ as much as he’d like to anymore and he has food, actual  _ food  _ in his kitchen, more than just stale cereal and instant lunch . He has a crib in his bedroom and toys in the living room, and Tetsurou doesn’t exactly understand exactly how he lived before her.

She doesn’t make things easier. He doesn’t want to kid himself by saying that she does, but she certainly makes things interesting. She’s lively and vibrant and  _ his,  _ and he loves her so completely, like he’s never loved before. 

His life with her is far from that of a typical twenty year old — most of his friends are still pursuing degrees, still spend weekends out and mornings sleeping in. Some are even settled into relationships, building homes and lives together. In a way, Tetsurou has built his own home here, though. 

His apartment has only ever been a temporary arrangement; it only has one bedroom and the pipes in the bathroom leak. One of the kitchen cabinet doors is cracked and he’s barely able to pay rent as it is, but Eri is none the wiser and he  _ knows  _ she’s happy, and he supposes that he’s happy, too. Or, he’s not unhappy.

His apartment isn’t bad, so to speak. He defends it vehemently, says it has ‘character’, and that they’re more than content with their life. He knows they’ll have to move to another later on, once Eri has grown and needs her own bedroom, but they’re  _ fine _ .

He texts Kenma as Eri eats her breakfast.

[09:21]  **tetsurou:**

_ do you want to hang out later _

He follows up with a string of emojis and sets his phone back down on the table and focuses his attention back on Eri — rather, he focuses his attention on preventing her from making much of a mess of his kitchen.

His phone vibrates on the table, reverberating against the wooden table, and he doesn’t look away from Eri as he answers without thinking, raising the phone to his ear.

“Morning, Kuro,” Tetsurou doesn’t have to think long, if at all before he realizes his text must have woken Kenma. 

“You sound tired,” he remarks, thoughtless. One hand tugs at the hem of his shirt, and he lets his gaze fall to a small pile of cereal next to Eri’s high chair. He sighs. 

“A little,” Kenma admits. “Don’t you have work?”

“Ah— I called out,” Tetsurou says. “I just wanted to be with her after yesterday, so.” Slight confusion lingers in his tone; he doesn’t know exactly why Kenma chose to call as opposed to texting, but Tetsurou would be lying to say he minded hearing his voice.

“Anyway,” Kenma says, and Tetsurou winces when Eri shrieks, apparently done with her breakfast. “I… God, she’s loud.”

Tetsurou blanches slightly at the remark, though it’s not entirely unexpected. Kenma isn’t used to her, and even if he  _ had  _ been, he doesn’t particularly enjoy children. Tetsurou doesn’t know why he ever expects any different.

He ignores it. “Did you want to hang out today, then?”

“I have work until six,” Kenma says. “But… After, if you’re not busy?”

“I’d love that,” Tetsurou says, and it’s apparent that he’s being perhaps  _ slightly  _ too eager, but he doesn’t entirely mind. He stands, phone pressed to his ear, and lifts Eri up from her high chair, frowning at the mess she left behind.

He speaks once more: “I’ll go now, because Eri’s done breakfast and—”

“That’s okay,” Kenma says, slightly rushed. “I’ll text you when I’m done work.”

“We’ll be here.”

The morning and the afternoon are easy, little deviation from the monotony of everyday life. Eri naps for two hours in the middle of the day, and Tetsurou finally manages to get the bedroom cleaned up. Sawamura calls in the middle of the day, just to catch up, and Tetsurou can hear Sugawara speaking quietly in the background. He makes a mental note to visit some time soon, or to have them come down for a visit— it’s long overdue.

He even takes Eri out in the afternoon, not to the park, but to the store and out to lunch, too.

* * *

 

He wonders as the digital clock switches from 8:00 to 8:01, if Kenma forgot about their plans, wonders if he should just put Eri to bed and call it a night. He decides he’ll give just ten more minutes before doing that, all in the hopes that Kenma will call.

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up. It’s entirely possible that Kenma simply changed his mind; it’s certainly not unheard of for his friend. He gets tired, of course, and at times, doesn’t want to exert himself by going out. It’s more than understandable, even if— 

His phone vibrates on the arm of the couch, and he grins as he picks it up, the screen coming to life to reveal a twitter notification. (It’s not even  _ good _ , just a bot account following him.)

Just then, as he sets his phone down, a notification appears at the top of his screen, alerting him to a text from Kenma. This time he really,  _ really _ , smiles as he reads it.

[20:08]  **kenma:**

sorry i was late, got caught up at work. wanna meet around 9? 

Tetsurou would love nothing more, he thinks, than to see him.

He quickly voices this in a reply and stands to freshen up in his bedroom. He’ll bring Eri along, and wonders for a brief moment, if Kenma expects that he’ll bring her. He’s never explicitly said that he minds being around her, but Tetsurou isn’t stupid by any means, and he can tell that, at least to some degree, Kenma feels discomfort because of her. Or, perhaps, because of the  _ idea  _ of her. He’s not sure which it is — or which is worse.

[20:43]  **tetsurou:**

on our way!!!!!! we’ll see you soon kenma 

They’re meeting at the halfway point between their apartments, an eleven minute walk from his apartment and a twelve minute walk from Kenma’s. It’s an inexpensive 24-hour ramen restaurant, and if Tetsurou knows Kenma at all, he hasn’t eaten since leaving for work.

The sky has changed to pitch black, not a far cry from the indigo it had been as he walked back from their earlier outing, and a streetlight flickers in the distance. 

As a child, he used to frequently look up at the sky, amazed by the vast expanse. Particularly when he’d wake up at nighttime (sometimes because of a bad dream, sometimes because of his parents’ incessant fighting), he’d crack a bedroom window open and admire the twinkling of the stars.

There are no stars visible in Tokyo, because of the light pollution, but when Eri gets a bit older — eight or nine, like he had been, he’s going to make it a point to take her out to the suburbs and admire them.

It doesn’t take him long to find Kenma; he spots him when they’re a block away, crosses the street so that they’re on the same side of the road, and meets up just in front of their restaurant, as always.

Rather than ask, Tetsurou holds open the door for Kenma and follows him inside. The dim lighting and quiet atmosphere are likely to lull Eri to sleep, and Tetsurou is looking forward to talking with Kenma.

He hasn’t felt— bad, exactly, since his meeting with Aiko’s parents, but he certainly hasn’t felt any better, and Kenma can cheer him up like none other. He’s  _ always  _ been Tetsurou’s go-to.

“Welcome back!” the owner greets, cheerful as always; they’ve frequented this restaurant since their early college days, and it’s like a strange second home to Tetsurou. “She’s growing so well, she’ll be eating with you in no time, won’t she?”

Tetsurou nods, affirming, and something tugs at his chest at the thought of Eri becoming older, accompanying them out on little trips like this. Of course, she almost always comes now, but it’ll be different.

“Take a seat wherever you’d like,” the owner says, friendly as ever, and they sit in the same spot they always do, a bit secluded from the main area, with a window in sight and a certain warmth that Tetsurou suspects must come from the kitchen. It’s their favorite, most definitely.

“Long day at work?” Tetsurou asks just as Kenma sighs, letting his chin rest in the palm of his hand.

“ _ Really  _ long day,” he agrees. “I stayed two hours extra with someone, and I still don’t have a solid idea of what they want.” Tetsurou hums, sympathetic.

“Was it the same you were talking about last week?” Tetsurou asks in disbelief. Kenma’s taken up work as a graphic designer to pay the bills during his schooling, and Tetsurou often finds himself in awe of just how hard he works. At least, he seems to enjoy it, which is more than most people can say for their jobs, Tetsurou included.

Kenma just nods, more exhausted than anything. They sit in silence, just comfortable and quiet, and  Eri falls asleep just as expected, not ten minutes after they’ve sat down.

When Tetsurou sighs, shoulders in a slump, he doesn’t have to look to visualize Kenma’s inquisitive expression. He doesn’t look up, though. If Kenma is that curious, he’ll ask. 

Kenma asks — a few minutes later, but he asks “what’s on your mind?”

Tetsurou half debates saying it’s nothing more than the stresses of day to day life, and he  _ knows  _ Kenma won’t question him even if he doesn’t believe him, exactly, but he’s been looking forward to airing his concerns, and if he’s going to do it all, it’s going to be with Kenma.

“It’s— I,” he starts, unsure. Uncertainty is not entirely foreign to him, but uncertainty with Kenma is… new, and it’s scary, and Tetsurou isn’t exactly sure what to make of it. 

He starts with a question, which is probably his safest choice: “do you think I’m a good dad?” Dancing around his main point won’t do anyone any favors, so he just dives headfirst in.

“Yes,” is Kenma’s immediate answer. He doesn’t hesitate, which must be good. “You’re not perfect, but you’re good, and definitely better than I’d be. You… Try your best.”

“Yeah,” Tetsurou agrees. “I— yeah.”

“What happened,” Kenma deadpans rather than asks, looking down at the soup bowl in front of him.

Tetsurou wrings his hands together in front of his chest, letting out a nervous puff of breath into the quiet of the restaurant. A waiter comes, breaking the slight discomfort, and Kenma doesn’t ask again, but there’s still this expectation — and it’s a reasonable one, at that, that Tetsurou is going to share his feelings.

And he does. He shares halfway through his bowl of ramen, letting the chopsticks rest anchored in a piece of hard-boiled egg.

He speaks with candor, like he hasn’t done in what might be months, or years maybe, like he used to do during high school, like he used to do when his parents used to fight like cats and dogs, when he used to run to Kenma’s at night.

He just  _ talks  _ and talks about Aiko’s parents, about the worry that he isn’t providing enough for Eri, about the worry that he’ll  _ never  _ be able to provide enough for Eri, and how she may have been better off in Aiko’s care anyway — she’s going to make at  _ least  _ triple what Tetsurou does. At least.

“I feel guilty for admitting that,” he says. “I love her and I love having her and I— I hope she doesn’t resent that I can’t give her  _ everything _ .”

Kenma shrugs. “I don’t think she’ll resent you.” He hesitates for a moment, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.

Tetsurou leans forward on his elbows — he has an idea where Kenma is taking this, but he doesn’t speak up whatsoever.

“I— I hope I’m not crossing a line,”  Kenma says, “but I think that you of all people know that having parents who can provide everything for you doesn’t guarantee… doesn’t  _ mean  _ that you’re going to be happy. You definitely know that.”

“I know that,” Tetsurou agrees. “I just want to give her better than what I grew up with.”

Kenma nods knowingly. “I think the fact that you’re saying that already shows that she’s  _ going  _ to grow up better…  _ happier  _ than you were,” he says.

“I hope so, Kenma,” Tetsurou agrees, sighing. “I really do.”

* * *

 

The following Thursday when Tetsurou returns to work, the desk to the left of his is cleared. He pays little mind to it, because its inhabitant — or its  _ previous  _ inhabitant was unremarkable at best, a 40-something father of two that he’d interacted with minimally, if ever. He doesn’t take it as a great loss.

He settles into his workspace, sleeves rolled up his forearms and computer screen glaring bright in front of him, and hopes desperately that the time passes by fast. A frame beside his monitor proudly shows one of the few family photos of himself along with Aiko and Eri, when she had been a mere two weeks old, and he spends much more time admiring it— admiring  _ her _ , than he’d ever admit. 

He works in solitude, as per usual, and works much more efficiently than he usually does. He’s not — a  _ bad  _ employee, but he’s certainly not the best, though he works like he’s floating on a cloud, his mind completely elsewhere.

He has little doubt about the cause of said euphoria; it could only ever be because of his pseudo-date with Kenma the night prior. Anyone would be exhausted, and reasonably so, after their late night excursion. Even Eri had been unusually tired the following day despite her nap in the restaurant, but Tetsurou feels more energized than anything. 

Around midday, just as he’s about to go on lunch break, Tetsurou’s boss steps to the side of his desk, fingertips drumming on the back of his chair.

“Kase-san,” he greets, looking up from his workspace. “Can I help you?” The unease he felt in the presence of his superior has dulled significantly since  he’s started his job, and he’s more than comfortable in his position. A sales job was never really his  _ goal _ , but it’s enough, and Kase doesn’t frighten him anymore (or, at the very least, not as much as she used to.)

Kase clears her throat a moment later, back straightening. “I did have a favor to ask,” she admits. “Would you be able to stay late today? I’d like for you to call some of Komatsu’s previous clients, since he is no longer with us.” She gestures to the empty desk beside Tetsurou, as if he hadn’t noticed.

“I would have to call and make sure my daughter would be okay, but if she is, I don’t mind staying.” He pauses a moment, leaning slightly forward. His tone drops slightly, and he half knows he shouldn’t be asking, but he’s nothing if not curious.

“Was Komatsu— did he quit, or was he…” he doesn’t finish the thought, mentally chastising himself for even asking. Luckily, Kase doesn’t seem to mind, even seems to be forthcoming with the information.

“He was let go,” she admits, her tone hushed. “They’re downsizing, so he was… let go.”

Tetsurou wishes, then, that he hadn’t asked. If he were to lose his job, he doesn’t know what he’d do. Komatsu was a dad, too. Tetsurou gives an involuntary full-body shudder at the thought.

“They let a few others from other positions go,” she says, lips pulled into a tight line, “but, I haven’t heard of any more to come in our department. I wouldn’t— I wouldn’t be too worried if I were you.”

She turns on her heel a moment later and her perfume lingers behind as she returns to her desk, and Tetsurou reaches for his phone once he’s certain she’s gone, forcing any worry to the back of his mind.

 

As it turns out, asking his neighbor to watch Eri late is a non-issue, because she has to drop her son off near Tetsurou’s work just around the time he aims to leave. He thanks her profusely at least four times before returning to work, the thought of his misfortune forgotten— or, at least, neatly tucked away for later.

He keeps busy with his newly doubled clientele; he knew Komatsu was busy, but the list that his boss had presented him with was staggering at best, and he leaves two and a half hours later to an almost entirely empty office.

He doesn’t look far before he sees (or, rather, hears) his neighbor across the street, scolding her children for not holding hands as they cross the street.

“I can’t—” he says, pausing to reach for Eri, “thank you enough for watching her extra for me. I really  _ really  _ do appreciate it.” 

“She’s never a problem,” she assures, though her attention is quickly taken as her younger child reaches for her hand, tugging with admirable urgency. He must have found something  _ very  _ important, Tetsurou thinks, so he starts on his way.

He’s on the train — four stops from his apartment, when he realizes that his keys are  _ not  _ at his apartment but in his desk drawer instead, and claps a hand over his forehead, groaning. In response, he receives a few glances (and one glare) from others in the train car.

He steps off at the next stop and dials without thinking, pressing the phone up to his cheek. As he balances Eri against his hip, it dawns on him that he doesn’t have  _ anything  _ for her— no diapers, no clothes, and no food. 

“Kenma!” he says when the ringing cuts off, relieved more than anything. “I’m so glad you picked up. I— how are you, first?”

“I’m okay,” Kenma says  It sounds like he stifles a yawn, but Tetsurou can’t be sure. “What did you need?”

It dawns on Tetsurou that Kenma might not want him (or, more realistically, might not want his daughter,) over at his apartment. And he’s certainly not obligated to have them over; Tetsurou has never brought Eri to his apartment before, so there’s no guarantee. 

“Kuro,” Kenma repeats slowly. Each syllable establishes presence, and Tetsurou guesses it’s not the first time he’s repeating himself. He shakes his head. 

“Sorry,” he says, rushed. “I left my keys in my desk at work, and I’m at the train station with Eri— right now. I don’t have anywhere to take her, and my neighbor is gone for the night and,” he cuts his train of speech off after a moment, feeling a slight blush creep up high on his cheekbones.

He could call his sister, if Kenma isn’t willing. She lives a little far, more in the suburbs as opposed to actually  _ in  _ Tokyo, but he could certainly swing it.

“Both of you,” Kenma says, thoughtful. And then, after a moment, “you can come, but I’m not waking up with her at night.” 

Tetsurou’s heart leaps, and he could almost definitely pick Kenma up and kiss him out of gratitude, but the train ride and a stop to the store give him more than enough time to calm — to  _ not  _ do that, because if he did, Kenma might close the door in his face.

When Tetsurou arrives, Kenma is waiting inside and carries the box of diapers upstairs into his apartment, and Tetsurou is so  _ so  _ glad that he has him.

“You’re later than normal,” Kenma says, frowning. “Did you get held up there?”

Tetsurou nods, recounts the somewhat strange events of the day, including his boss’ slightly strange (and not at  _ all  _ reassuring) explanation, and makes himself comfortable on the couch.

“She’s never seen a cat before, I don’t think,” he says when Kenma’s makes itself known, weaving between his legs lazily before jumping up on the counter in front of them.

“Shameful,” Kenma teases, clicking his tongue. “Poor parenting at its finest.”

Tetsurou snorts at that, unable to resist teasing back. “She might’ve seen a cat before, but you’ve never let me bring her here.”

“You’ve never asked,” Kenma says, which isn’t entirely untrue— but Tetsurou had asked if  _ he  _ could come over several times prior, and Kenma had never said yes unless Eri was elsewhere.

“I guess you’re right,” he says, shrugging. “I guess this means you’ll be inviting her to stay 24/7. You can totally have her next weekend if you’d like.” The grin on his face certainly gives him away, but not before he catches the paling of Kenma’s face and the way he steps backward.

“Pass,” he says simply, ducking out of view to grab his cat’s treats. 

Tetsurou half wonders why he lets himself foster the illusion, the idea, that Kenma is going to want what Tetsurou can offer him, now or ever. Tetsurou is not convinced that he can win either way, and as far as he’s concerned, pretending causes the least amount of pain for him.

“Do you dislike her?” he finally asks. He’s already slightly overstaying his welcome just by having her with him, so if he’s ever going to ask, it’s the opportune time.  _ Carpe diem  _ or something like that.

“I don’t like kids,” Kenma says, truthful. That’s… expected.

“I know, but do you dislike  _ her _ ?”

“Not—” Kenma hesitates. Tetsurou doesn’t speak, just waits with bated breath. Eri stirs in his arms, and as he looks at her, he doesn’t understand how  _ anybody  _ could dislike her. “Kuro, you know I’m not… a kid person,” he finally says, defeated. 

“I know,” he agrees. 

“It’s still weird that you have a kid,” he says. “But, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Tetsurou winces, more at the phrasing than anything. At the very least, Kenma is being honest, so Tetsurou gives him credit for that.  

He quiets, then, and focuses back on Eri. He’s aware of Kenma speaking somewhere in the background, but it’s almost as if he’s underwater. He may as well be, for as much as Tetsurou is paying attention.

He pulls his phone out when Kenma excuses himself to go get changed, and decides to text his sister. 

[19:48]  **tetsurou:**

meiko!!!  ☆

[19:48]  **tetsurou:**

do you want to come to tokyo next week!! ik it’s sudden but i think someone misses you

[19:49]  **tetsurou:**

i meant the baby but ofc i also miss you and would love to see you 

[19:53]  **meiko:**

You’re so talkative tonight. 

[19:54]  **meiko:**

How does next Friday night grab you?

Tetsurou beams, absolutely  _ beams _ , and when Kenma reenters, he shoots a curious gaze, the brief moments of tension apparently forgotten. 

[19:55]  **tetsurou:**

sounds great!! we’re looking forward to it!

“Meiko,” he explains to Kenma, positioning Eri just so that her back is facing him, so that it’s easy to pretend that it’s only them. It’s never been only them, will never be, but that’d be so easy. Tetsurou is wistful, almost.

“She’s well?”

“She’s visiting next week,” Tetsurou says proudly. “I was going to go up and see her at some family friend’s wedding, but my parents will be there, so—”

“So you’re not going,” Kenma supplies.

“Right.”

Kenma doesn’t often worry about crossing lines, simply because he isn’t generally one to cross them, but he steps back before he speaks, and Tetsurou reads the pause for what it is: uncertainty.

“Do you think you’d want to see them again, your parents?” he asks. He places one foot forward, tentative.

“No.” Tetsurou doesn’t miss a beat in answering. “No, definitely not.”

The conversation ends there, and Kenma slinks into the kitchen, silent.

Wordlessly, he seats himself beside Tetsurou upon return, setting two mugs down on the coffee table in front of them. Tetsurou feels — he feels heavy, feels guilty that Kenma is the one cleaning up  _ his  _ messes, is the one consoling him always. If he asked, Kenma would flippantly wave him off, but it has to be exhausting, to some degree.

He’s well aware of this, but he doesn’t have ( _ no,  _ he quickly thinks,  _ doesn’t want _ ) anybody else, and Kenma doesn’t seem to, either, oddly enough. 

“Thanks,” he finally says. “Uh. For tea and for letting us stay the night.”

“I don’t mind.” Kenma shrugs noncommittally, and Tetsurou breathes a sigh of relief: he definitely means it. Tetsurou can read him like an open book. He’s been able to since they were children, which is always a convenient thing.

Kenma can do it right back if he so chooses, can tell exactly when Tetsurou is upset, even if he won’t admit to it. And Tetsurou has a sneaking suspicion that he does so more than he’ll ever admit.

 

Kenma’s cat jumps on Tetsurou’s chest in the middle of the night and he  _ flails _ , arms splaying out and cat darting out of the room and down the hallway, and he curses under his breath when Eri begins to cry, no doubt his fault.

“Fuck,” he groans, quiet. His back  _ hurts  _ and the cat ripped a hole in his shirt and Eri is… the most pressing thing, and she’s miserable and shaken.

Tetsurou sits up from his makeshift bed — or, rather, his pile of blankets on the floor, to lean over the side of the bed where Eri had been sleeping just moments earlier, cradling a hand under her head and lifting her.

“This is why dad didn’t get you a pet,” he tells her, chuckling. His voice is still deep from sleep.

His attempt at a joke does little to calm her, and he bounces slightly, hoping that maybe  _ that  _ will. He’s never had good rhythm, but babies definitely like to be rocked, and his is no exception to the rule. She’s crying, won’t  _ stop _ , and if Kenma wakes up, he’ll probably tell Tetsurou to get lost.

He wouldn’t be entirely unjustified in it, either, because he has work in the morning, and he’d explicitly stated that he was  _ not  _ getting up with the baby, indirectly or otherwise. So, however the situation is spun, Tetsurou needs to silence her before—

Kenma stands in the doorway, rubbing at his eyes under the frames of his glasses. Tetsurou has always felt strangely warm towards the idea of Kenma’s glasses, which he only wears when his contacts have been retired for the night, but since he has an ounce of sense, he’s well aware that it would  _ not  _ be the appropriate time to tell his friend this.

“I’m really sorry,” he says, quick. “And I understand if you want me to like, call Meiko. She usually sleeps through the night and I can almost always calm her down, but the—”

“Kuro.”

“...Know you’re probably  _ so  _ tired of cleaning up my messes, but I promise—”

Kenma sighs. “ _ Kuro, _ ” he repeats, impatient. And then, as Tetsurou continues to babble, he says, “Tetsurou.”

Which— he  _ never  _ says that, never calls Tetsurou his given name, and his eyes snap up to meet Kenma’s. He doesn’t look angry, more tired than anything, which is completely unexpected.

“Is everything okay?” he hums, quiet. 

“I—” Tetsurou blows out a puff of air, and Eri pulls the neckline of his shirt towards her mouth, but she’s growing more content, and Tetsurou just has to pick his battles. “I. Yes, they’re okay. I’m really sorry she woke you, because that’s  _ really  _ not normal, but Yuki scared her, I think.”

Kenma snorts at that, doesn’t even respond before walking back down the hall. Tetsurou’s just glad, above all, that he isn’t irritated.

“You,” he says, pointing an accusatory finger at his daughter’s chest, “are  _ so  _ grounded.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd love to hear your thoughts about this fic/life/kuroken etc on my [tumblr!!](www.kenmatetsu.tumblr.com)


	4. crash

It’s sort of a pavlovian response, the way Tetsurou thinks to call Kenma as he spreads shower gel over his chest, inhaling the clean scent as the bubbles build, and he shifts so that the water runs against his back, beating down heavy.

The shower gel reminds him of Kenma because he’d started using it during his college days — he spent  _ so  _ much time at Kenma’s, showered there and used all of his things, that he’d bought the same gel. So, the aching feeling in his chest at the thought of his friend is justified. (He tells himself this, anyway.)

He sighs deep, lets his shoulders hunch, and turns to face the water once more, hair flattening against his head. He doesn’t have long to go before Eri wakes up; if he knows her at all, he has five minutes to be dry and attending to her, so he doesn’t dawdle much longer.

He’s timed it perfectly, because he hears her first whine just as he approaches his bedroom door, gazing upon the corner where her crib is set up. 

“So patient, you,” he coos, lifting her from the sitting position. “Thanks for letting me shower.” The older she gets, Tetsurou has noted, the less time he has alone, and as she’s just a week away from seven months old, the fifteen minutes of solitude in the shower had been incredibly needed.

He’s slowed down in his quest to make breakfast due to the infant on his hip, but as the smell of coffee wafts into the air, warming the tiny apartment from the inside out, Tetsurou breathes a sigh of relief and treads off to get dressed for work, Eri in tow.

Work is — it’s  _ easy _ , and he’s pleased to see that all of his coworkers are still there. Kase had said that would be the case, but Tetsurou still finds himself put at ease with that revelation. And, with that anxiety neatly tucked away within the confines of his mind, he’s able to have a productive day. Kase even stops by his desk once more to praise him, and as Tetsurou steps out into the sunshine, he can’t help but think that things are truly looking up. His commute home is easy, and not half as crowded as usual, so much so that he even gets a seat on the train, and when he arrives to his neighbor’s apartment, head held high, Eri is still asleep.

He settles into the couch, tucking one leg under the other, and gazes down at his phone, thumb hovering the contact  _ mom  _ before he scrolls down further, swallowing the lump in his throat. 

He settles on  _ tsukki!!!!  _ and selects the call button, pressing the phone to his ear. He’s cautious to keep his voice down as Eri sleeps beside him, hands lifted above her head. 

The phone is on its fourth ring, and Tetsurou is just about to hang up when there’s an answer; it’s a slightly muffled answer, but it’s there.

“Tsukki, you—” a voice scolds, and it sounds slightly far away. Tetsurou easily recognizes it as Yamaguchi’s after a moment of thought. “You’re being rude!” There’s another bout of shuffling, and Tetsurou winces when Eri shifts in her sleep, though she settles a moment later.

“Kuroo,” Tsukishima greets, quiet. His tone is slightly subdued, and Tetsurou can only imagine the look he’s receiving from Yamaguchi. It almost,  _ almost  _ makes him laugh. “Can I help you?”

“Tsukki! I just wanted to call and catch up. It’s been a little while since I called, so I figure it was long overdue.”

“Right. My life  _ was  _ feeling suspiciously peaceful, so,” Tsukishima deadpans.

“I’ll ignore that,” Tetsurou decides. “I know you don’t mean it that way.”

“I do,” Tsukishima says. “I absolutely do mean it that way.” And then, Tetsurou hears Yamaguchi once more.

“Tsukki!”

Tsukishima sighs, sounding more pained than anything. 

“You don’t have to hide your joy at being able to talk to me, you know,” Tetsurou chastises. “I can handle it, promise.” 

“Wow,” Tsukishima says. And then, “I’ll keep that in mind. If you had no reason to call anyway, shouldn’t you be with your child?”

“My  _ child _ ,” Tetsurou begins to defend, but just as he does so, she wakes and gives a small whine of discontent, stretching her arms above her head. Tetsurou silences.

“Thought so.”

“I’ll get going,” he decides, as if he has any choice in the matter. Eri is growing more impatient by the second and he sets his phone down, lifting her up quickly and standing from the couch.

He makes his way to the open window in the hopes that hearing the activity from the streets below and feeling the fresh air will calm her — it’s certainly had that effect in the past, so it isn’t a far stretch.

However, she continues her incessant crying, turning her face away from the open window and burying it in Tetsurou’s work shirt.

“C’mon, you’re better than this,” he sighs. “It’s  _ okay _ .” 

Almost everybody had told him that Eri’s babyhood would fly by, that he would never know what had happened to it and that he’d miss it dearly, but he doesn’t believe that for a  _ second _ , because she doesn’t seem to be able to be consoled despite his best efforts, and he’d give anything to be able to ask her what is wrong, to have her respond to him rather than cry.

Maybe he’s selfish for thinking that, selfish for wishing her babyhood away, but he  _ doesn’t  _ love these moments, doesn’t love the crying, doesn’t love the helplessness he feels. In that way, he’s similar to his parents — to his mother, and he shudders at the thought.

Though, he feels more helpless than anything, he just wants Eri to stop crying for her  _ own  _ sake. His own mother had been cold, had wanted him and his sisters to behave for her sake. They aren’t exactly the same, though Tetsurou feels sick at the thought of being like her at all.

“I’m not,” he says to himself, and somebody raps at his door once, then twice, and then three times. He blinks, unmoving, only half-aware of Eri’s continuous cry.

When they knock once more, Tetsurou steps to the door, gives a quick prayer that it’s not his elderly neighbor who has complained about Eri’s noise level  _ several  _ times, and opens it slowly, grimacing.

“I don’t want to intrude…” his shoulders slump in relief; it’s only Kaneko, and since she watches Eri most days, it certainly won’t be a complaint about the noise. Still, Tetsurou gives her a curious look.

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” she repeats, more apologetic than anything. “But, I could hear her across the hall and I wanted to bring this back over.” She produces a thin pink cloth — Eri’s baby blanket, which Tetsurou is almost  _ certain  _ will calm her.

He gives a blank gaze, but quickly snaps out of it, stammering out a thank you and snuggling the cloth closer to Eri’s chest. If Tetsurou knows her, knows anything at all, she’ll certainly calm down with the newfound comfort item. 

Only— she  _ doesn’t _ , and Tetsurou forces down embarrassment as his door remains open; she’s generally a well behaved baby, far more so than his younger sister had been at this age, if that’s anything to go off, and this helpless is  _ new _ .

“How old is she, again?” Kaneko asks, and Tetsurou almost,  _ almost  _ wants to give a sarcastic answer, but he quickly suppresses the urge, though he doesn’t understand why she needs to know.

“Seven months next week.” 

Kaneko nods, and Tetsurou can practically visualize the lightbulb above her head. “She’s getting teeth, I’d bet money on it,” she explains, nodding. “Both of my boys were miserable around her age. But, at least you have an idea as to what’s going on with her.”

And Tetsurou is glad that if nothing, he has  _ some  _ idea how to comfort her. His graciousness towards Kaneko is unparalleled — she often fills in the gaps where his own mother would fit, even reminds Tetsurou of his mother appearance-wise, and is always  _ always  _ there to offer advice. Tetsurou is definitely lucky to have her in his life. 

“Sunshine,” he pleads as Eri’s cries persist. He offers her one of her toys, which she almost immediately takes directly to her mouth.

Her tears don’t dry immediately, but they certainly begin to let up, and Tetsurou is relieved enough to let the fact that she’s drooling on his couch slide — just barely. 

He doesn’t get much reprieve though, before Eri is bored of the toy and of her blanket and begins to cry again, and Tetsurou’s head swims, absolutely  _ swims _ . His phone vibrates on the coffee table, seems to resound through his entire apartment.

It’s a litany, crying and vibrating and the static of the television that Tetsurou doesn’t even recall turning on, and his head begins to pound. 

“Okay,” he tells himself. “Pick your battles, Tetsurou.” It’s a bit sad, perhaps, that he has to tell himself how to proceed, but his body has been on autopilot for the past seven months. He could use some guidance, even if it’s only from himself.

He crawls into bed, shoulders hunched, at three forty-two, when Eri has worn herself out crying. She fell asleep on the couch and Tetsurou didn’t dare move her, just situated pillows to keep her in place and stalked off to bed. 

She didn’t look peaceful in the slightest, cheeks tear-stained and rosy, frown etched into her sleeping face, but she’s  _ asleep  _ and that’s all Tetsurou cares about.

[03:43]  **tetsurou:**

i have either lost it or am in the process of losing it

[03:43]  **tetsurou:**

i didn’t know she was capable of crying that much and that loud, meiko. i truly did not

If Meiko answers, Tetsurou doesn’t see it as he drifts into sleep. He only manages an hour before the baby monitor crackles to life, and while he’d love to sleep it off, he begrudgingly treads down the hallway.

* * *

 

It should come as no surprise that Tetsurou sports eye bags that rival those of somebody who hasn’t slept in over a year — and even if that’s not his exact case, he feels like it. His coworkers are kind enough to point out his exhaustion, and Tetsurou feels like bricks are cemented to each of his shoulders because of how much he slumps down in his chair.

Meiko calls when he’s walking from the train to his apartment building, and Tetsurou is almost too exhausted to answer. He does anyway.

“Meiko,” he greets, significantly more subdued than usual. 

“Rough night?” she asks, right off the bat. “I can practically hear the tiredness in your voice.”

Tetsurou grimaces. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

“Baby brother,” Meiko teases. “When have I  _ ever _ ?” Tetsurou easily visualizes the grin on her face — it’s one he’s seen several times over the years.

“You’re doing okay?” she asks after a beat of silence, voice taking on a more concerned tone. Meiko has always fallen into a caring role, which isn’t surprising, necessarily. Tetsurou is only barely a year younger than she is, but from a young age, she had cared for him while their parents’ focus had been on advancing in their careers.

Tetsurou doesn’t feel the same red, raw bitterness he felt towards his parents as a teenager; it’s more of an empty feeling, more like he wishes, wishes more than anything that they loved him, that they loved each other. But, that ship has sailed.

“I’m doing okay,” he promises, coming down from his momentarily derailment. And then, “really, I am. Eri has just been… dragging me through the mud,” he admits.

Meiko clicks her tongue, slight but still comforting.

“This age is rough. Makes me miss when she was so little and spent all her time sleeping.” He approaches his apartment building, turns the key in the latch, and steps inside. His shoulders hunch slightly and he steps towards the elevator.

“I’ll see you this Friday, Tetsu,” his sister promises. “Just hang on, okay? If you need to talk anything out, you know you can.”

“I’m a big boy,” Tetsurou teases. “I can handle it.”

“You can,” Meiko agrees. “But that doesn’t mean you have to do it  _ alone _ .”

Tetsurou knows deep down, somewhere inside, that she’s right, but he doesn’t truly take the words to heart, doesn’t truly listen.

Luckily when he picks Eri up, she’s in much higher spirits the day before, and while they don’t have a completely easy night, it’s infinitely easier than the previous night.

Tetsurou sleeps well hours later when he crawls into bed — they both do.

* * *

 

He drops Eri off earlier than usual the next morning, gets thirty minutes to himself, and actually  _ sits  _ and enjoys his coffee, quiet. It’s not relaxation, because Tetsurou can feel the weight of everything on him, can feel his pulse quicken. His heart relentlessly beats in his chest.

It isn’t Kenma’s fault, and Tetsurou would never dream of blaming him for it, but Tetsurou can’t stop rethinking their conversation from the other night, reliving. ( _ It’s weird that you have a kid  _ and  _ you know I’m not a kid person, Kuro _ ), which aren’t unjustified. They’re not unfair, even, so Tetsurou really has no reason to dwell on them.

Like a popular song in the dead of summer, their conversation—  Tetsurou’s questions, all of it, make a home within the confines of his mind. He’s never liked popular music, either, but it would be a much preferred alternative to this, certainly. It clouds his mind, unwanted, even throughout his workday. After lunch, even his boss asks if he’s feeling okay, and he brushes her off with a wave of his hand.

He’s okay. It’s  _ okay _ , or something similar. (Or, it  _ will  _ be okay.)

He stops on his walk home from work and buys fresh flowers from a street vendor; if nothing else, they’ll add some color to his apartment, which sports bare white walls and brown floors, entirely underwhelming. 

His night is quiet but not relaxing, and Eri keeps him on his toes,  always into something or other. More than once,  he finds himself pausing, forcing deep breaths, and trying to untense his shoulders, a small attempt to remove some of the edge he feels.

As he kneels in front of the bathtub, shirt soaked from Eri’s constant splashing, weight seems to lift off his shoulders and his muscles slowly beginning to un-tense, relief seems to wash over him, much needed and long overdue.

* * *

 

Rush hour in Tokyo is crowded. This is not news to Tetsurou, per se, but he hadn’t considered the timing when inviting Kenma out. So, they stand pressed against their fellow train passengers, packed tight as if they’re sardines in a can. 

“Close?” Kenma asks, shifting slightly with the train’s sudden stop. There’s a slight edge in his tone, and Tetsurou knows that he wants to be off the train — Tetsurou does, too, and Eri must as well, because she’s just beginning to shift in his arms and whine, listless.

“We could get off at the next one,” Tetsurou says. “We’d have to walk a little to get there. Or we could get off at the  one after.”

Kenma nods and leans into Tetsurou’s side ever so lightly. If he weren't so hyper aware of his friend’s presence, Tetsurou may have missed it.

The train lurches once more and Kenma tugs the sleeve of Tetsurou’s jacket, pulling him towards the opened doors.

“I want to stop somewhere,” Kenma says as they exit the station. He blinks in the sudden sunlight. “I need a new stylus for my DS.”

Tetsurou nods. He needs to buy Eri new clothes, which will be interesting, if nothing else. Kenma and baby shopping — baby care in general, will be an interesting juxtaposition, one Tetsurou hasn't really encountered before. He hopes Kenma won’t object.

They duck into a video game store along the way, tucked in between a veterinary clinic and a florist, and Kenma buys not just a new stylus, but two entirely new games. He clutches the white plastic bag’s handle as they continue onwards.

“Meiko is coming this Friday,” Tetsurou says. One hand is wrapped around Eri’s waist, holding her atop his hip. It’d be so easy to hold Kenma’s hand, but— 

“She hasn't come in a while, has she?”

Tetsurou shakes his head. “Last time she came down, Eri could barely roll over. She almost  _ crawls  _ now.” He's made plans a few times to visit her back at home, though he’s always backed out at the last moment, flimsy excuses and nerves to blame. 

Kenma just nods, quiet. 

“Sounds like a pain— crawling.”

“She’s into everything already. I’m constantly terrified she’s going to get like, electrocuted or something similar.”

“But she hasn’t so far,” Kenma points out. “So, you’re doing okay.”

Tetsurou laughs, deep, and all the affection in the world seems to come out alongside the laughter. “Just okay,” he teases. And then, “Just up here, alright? I need to stop in and get her some new clothes.”

The children’s shop is surprisingly empty; one employee greets them from behind the desk and another folds clothes that Tetsurou deems much too large, but it’s empty of other customers. 

Tetsurou can’t help the grin on his face as he holds up numerous questionable outfits.

Kenma wrinkles his nose at a particularly offensive one, ruffled and far from Tetsurou’s typical simple outfit choices for his daughter. “No. For her own well-being, no.”

“I would  _ never _ .” One of the employees— Tetsurou deems him to be the manager, gives him a disapproving look over the rim of her glasses, but remains otherwise silent. 

He skims through the options in front of him, letting Eri feel the materials. It’s not as if she can tell him what she likes just yet, but she seems to be enjoying herself nonetheless.

And, just as Tetsurou is about to turn to Kenma and say he’s finished, his friend presents him with an outfit. 

“Oh my god. Where did you even find that?” he asks, grin spreading across his face. 

It’s a Pokémon onesie, bright and cheerful, with a horde of characters on it, and Tetsurou grabs it eagerly. It’s so  _ Kenma  _ and Tetsurou knows, already just  _ knows _ , that every time Eri wears it, he's going to think of Kenma. 

“Start them young,” Kenma says, shrugging. “It’s definitely necessary.”

And truthfully, even if Tetsurou didn't love it, he would have bought it just simply on principle. He does this, hangs onto any tiny  _ tiny  _ piece of interest Kenma shows, clings to it like it’s his lifeline. He has one photo on his phone of the two of them asleep in Tetsurou’s bed, and the warmth that grows in his chest when he sees it is unparalleled. 

They walk on, each with a bag in hand, going nowhere in particular. Kenma shoves his free hand deep into his pocket and Tetsurou holds Eri close. He’s so,  _ so  _ lucky to have her. He thinks this as they pass a parent and a child who looks to be no more than two or three months older than his own, whining incessantly. And, while Eri certainly has her moments, they’re few and far between. The exasperated look on the woman’s face suggests that this isn’t uncommon.

“It could be worse,” he remarks once they’re out of earshot. “She’s pretty good.” 

“Shocking, since she’s yours,” Kenma teases, offering a smirk of his own.

Tetsurou tuts disapprovingly, tongue behind his front teeth. “Brutal,” he says. “Absolutely brutal.”

They walk along, quiet but enjoying one another. Kenma’s keys jingle as he walks, pleasant and keeping Tetsurou in the moment. Indigo stretches above and behind them; a plane passes above their heads, and if Kenma notices, he doesn’t pay it any mind. 

The calm that washes over Tetsurou as they continue onwards is somewhat unexpected, but welcome nonetheless. They buy drinks and argue over who pays (Tetsurou does), linger in the cafe until a tired teenage employee tells them that they’re closing before turning on her heel and walking away.

When Tetsurou walks back to his apartment from the train station, he swears he’s floating on air.

* * *

 

When Meiko arrives, she brings peace with her; a sort of easy calm that hasn’t occupied the apartment in months, if ever, seems to be instantaneous with her stepping through the door.

“Oh,” she breathes, reaching out towards Eri, who squirms in Tetsurou’s arms. “Look at  _ you _ , sunshine!” Her gaze flickers up to Tetsurou for a quick moment, and he offers a warm smile. “She grew overnight,” Meiko says, shaking her head.

“She’s already tall for her age,” Tetsurou agrees. It’s no shock, because her parents stand at one eighty seven and one sixty five centimeters. She’s typically more long and lean than other children her age, the same way he had appeared in his baby pictures. And while he’s only seen a handful of Aiko’s, she appeared to be much the same.

“You know,” Meiko says, leaning her back against the door, “she really looks more like you every time I see her. It’s almost eerie.” 

“Everyone says so,” Tetsurou says, beaming. The resemblance is striking, though he would argue that Eri was certainly much cuter than him. He watches the two carefully, and it’s as if no time has passed at all — Eri leans her head into Meiko’s chest, eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiles, and Meiko holds her close. Tetsurou mimics the expression involuntarily.

“It’s nice that you came,” he finally says. “Even though I’m not convinced you cared about seeing  _ me _ as much as you did her.”

“Did you say something?” Meiko teases. She seems to try to maintain a straight face, though her playful smile emerges after not long. “I was too busy with her.”

“Very funny.”

He’s glad she came, really, despite all the back and forth teasing. Trips back home are few and far between, because the probability that he will run into his parents is entirely too high; Meiko has since moved out of their childhood home, but a mere fifteen minutes’ drive. And, since Tetsurou hasn’t seen, hasn’t spoken to his mother and father since several months before Eri’s birth, it’s not a risk he’s eager to take. 

Tokyo is more exciting, too, always offering something to do, somewhere new. Tetsurou had moved into the area where he currently resides three years ago, and still doubts he’ll ever discover  _ everything  _ it has to offer. It’s nice, a deviation from the predictability that surrounds their childhood home.

Meiko makes herself at home in Tetsurou’s living room, settled amongst the pillows with Eri sat in her lap, and it’s almost as if no time has passed at all since he’s last seen her. 

“We can get dinner,” he offers suddenly. “I don’t know if you’re hungry right now, but there’s a few places nearby that I like. Kenma and I went out the other day for burgers — it’s only a ten minute walk.”

“We could,” Meiko agrees, nodding. After a slight pause, she asks, “how is Kenma, by the way?”

Tetsurou lets his eyes drift close; it’s a bit of a complicated question, and Meiko must know this because she doesn’t push him to answer right away.

“He’s good,” Tetsurou finally says. “Busy with school and with the whole graphic design thing. He’s getting  _ really  _ good at his job.” It’s a formality, and they both know what Meiko is  _ really  _ trying to ask: how are  _ you  _ and Kenma?

Tetsurou presses his tongue behind his front teeth and lets his shoulders slump slightly. “Mostly the same,” he admits. “But, the other day we went shopping, and he picked out an outfit for her.”

“But he’s still not really… interested?” Meiko supplies, mouth forming into a sympathetic pout.

“I don’t know,” Tetsurou says. “I don’t  _ know _ .” 

“Just— be careful, okay? Especially for her.”

Tetsurou fights the slight urge to remark that he doesn’t  _ need  _ to be looked after, that he’s not a child, and simply nods instead. Eri gives a frustrated whine, wiggling out of Meiko’s arms to the best of her ability. When Tetsurou watches with an amused expression, she reaches a hand out to him.

“If you’re hungry, we should go now,” he says. “She’s starting to get tired, so I’ll have to put her to sleep after.”

The walk to dinner is a quick one, and before long they settle towards the back of the restaurant, Eri sat up in Tetsurou’s lap.

“So,” Meiko says, voice slightly muffled by the straw that sits at the edge of her mouth. “Do you think you’d like to come home sometime soon?”

Tetsurou sure hopes he’s imagining the wishful tone her voice takes on as he clarifies: “ _ home _ home?”

And, when she nods, all he can offer is a shrug. “You don’t— I mean, obviously you don’t have to see mom and dad if you don’t want, but it’d be nice if you’d consider it, at least.” 

“I wouldn’t see them,” he states plainly. “Unless it was by accident.”

Meiko’s teeth tug at her bottom lip, and a chapped piece of skin pulls loose when she lets go. Tetsurou recalls that she always has, probably always  _ will,  _ carry a tube of cherry chapstick in her purse, and nearly suggests she uses it. 

“I can’t blame you,” she finally says. She’s one of the few that doesn’t try to force, guilt, or coerce Tetsurou into reconciling with his parents. Attempts from friends and family have been fruitless, both on his behalf and his parents. Perhaps because Meiko and he grew up so close in age — just seventeen months apart, she understands the intricacies and the balance of their family more than most. She understands Tetsurou more than almost anybody, and he appreciates that greatly.

When their food arrives, he even shares with Eri, trying his best to keep the mess she makes confined to one area. It’s a lost cause before it even begins, and over the course of dinner and being lost in conversation half the time, the infant, the table, and Tetsurou’s lap are all covered in crumbs. 

And while he’d like to stay behind and finish cleaning up Eri’s mess, she’s beginning to whine once more from where she lies, no longer distracted by dinner.

“Home,” he promises her, setting a napkin down on the table. And, home is exactly where they go.

* * *

 

When Tetsurou wakes to the shriek of a kettle, he jolts slightly, roused from a dream that he’s unable to recall. He rubs his eyes, blinking due to the sudden influx of light from the windows that Meiko has opened, and stands from the couch, not bothering to hide his yawn behind his elbow.

“You didn’t have to make breakfast for us,” he insists and shakes his head, though when Meiko smiles, he returns it easily. “I  _ do  _ really appreciate it, though. Sleep well?”

There’s a certain ease that comes with having somebody (another adult, as opposed to his seven month old) in the apartment, somebody to make breakfast and somebody to help with Eri.

She sits on the counter, a safe enough distance from the stove, but certainly still within arm’s reach, and still in her pajamas, a toy gripped in one hand.

It’s a far cry from the somewhat rushed and lonely mornings Tetsurou is used to, an entirely welcome change at that. He had no doubt that when Aiko leaves later the same day, he’ll find it slightly difficult to adjust to bring just the two of them once more, though it’s a routine he’s comfortable with. 

They eat at the table pressed up to the wall opposite the stove, and Eri sits in Meiko’s lap. Her high chair remains empty— Tetsurou doesn’t think he recalls Meiko putting her down since she arrived the evening prior, but Eri seems to enjoy the attention enough. 

The morning is quiet, transitions easily into afternoon. They decide to stay in, half because Tetsurou doesn’t exactly have the money to go out  _ again _ , and half because they’re a little too collectively tired to entertain the idea of heading out into Tokyo.

So, they stay in Tetsurou’s small apartment. They watch  _ Kiki’s Delivery Service  _ and one episode of something neither of them recognize, and Tetsurou shuffles through the music on his phone when they switch the television off. They even break out a deck of cards, simple but fun nonetheless.

And while they don’t do anything worth noting, it’s easily one of the best days Tetsurou has had lately. When Meiko stands at the door with her purse slung over her shoulder, Tetsurou’s own shoulders slump.

“Think about visiting back home, okay?” she asks, offering a closed-lipped smile. “It’d be nice, I think.”   
“I’ll think about it,” Tetsurou says, and then, “you’ll miss your train if you don’t get going.” And, just like that, the door closes. Music still plays on in the background, cheerful and bright, but everything seems a bit too quiet. Eri is asleep in the bedroom and the window is closed tight. Tetsurou switches the music off, sinking into the couch.

[21:18]  **tetsurou:**

safe trip.

* * *

Tetsurou is fairly observant, a trait acquired during childhood and developed as he aged. He’d observed his parents’ behaviors, had walked on eggshells to keep them happy as a child. In high school, as the volleyball club’s captain, he had constantly observed his teammates, had adjusted set-ups and positions accordingly. He’s constantly aware of his surroundings, almost always has an idea of the situation around him, always thinking a few steps ahead.

And so, when his boss approaches his desk with a cardboard box propped up against her hip, he sucks in a sharp breath. It’s so sudden that it hurts, and he has no choice but to cough in surprise.

“Kase-san,” he greets, quiet. She sets the box down beside his desk.

“I’d like you to come with me,” she says, not making eye contact. Tetsurou almost doesn’t want to.

“Okay,” he says, and follows her into her office. He settles in one of the two leather chairs in front of her desk, and she sits opposite him.

‘Rip the band-aid off’ is what he wants to say. ‘Just tell me already.’ He  _ knows _ , but can’t even begin to imagine why. One of his coworkers had been —  _ let go _ , Kase had said, but surely if that were the case, he would have known in advance. Is he being  _ fired _ ? Surely not. He consistently performs well and stays on task. Just the other day, he’d—

“Kuroo,” Kase says, sighing, and she sounds under water, almost.

Tetsurou can make ends meet. He’ll have to. He could certainly find another office job, could supplement his income by bartending or  _ something.  _ He could certainly make it work.

“As we continue to downsize…”

He has a  _ daughter _ . He has a daughter who doesn’t even have her own bedroom in his home, a home he can barely afford as is.  _ Tetsurou  _ can scrape by on microwave meals and instant lunch, but she can’t.

“... know this must be incredibly jarring, but with your low seniority, we have no other choice.” Kase clears her throat. When Tetsurou doesn’t speak back, she repeats his name.

“Okay,” he says, breathless. “I— okay. Uh. Thank you.” She doesn’t dismiss him but he stands nonetheless, returns to his desk with his shoulders slumped. He wants to kick the cardboard box away, but instead he sets it on his desk chair and begins to set his belongings inside; the box fills with photos of Eri, Tetsurou, and Kenma, fills with little knick-knacks and tissue boxes. Tetsurou sets his favorite mug on top. With the positioning, it very well may break, but he doesn’t  _ care _ , doesn’t care about anything other than how he can possibly swing this.

Helplessness is a train ride on an empty train in the middle of the afternoon. Helplessness is Kase’s words ringing in his ears, is the sympathetic gaze he receives as he knocks at his neighbor’s door, is the remnants of his favorite mug broken in the cardboard box. Helplessness is this, distinctively.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the jaws song is beginning to be the soundtrack to kuroo's life and i'm not even a little bit sorry


	5. falling, falling, falling

The first thing Tetsurou does when he arrives home is run a bath. The tub is nestled into a corner of his apartment’s only bathroom is an average size, but he’s always forced to make the choice between letting his legs or his upper torso be exposed to the cool air. So, he hasn’t taken a bath since the night he moved in.

His heart hammers within the confines of his chest, and while the warm water does little to quell his anxieties, to calm the incessant shaking of his hands, it doesn’t make things _worse_ , which is the best he’s going to get. He settles, which he's been doing too much lately. 

He thinks that Eri must be able to sense his anxiety, because she doesn’t whine like she always does in the bath—which might have something to do with the toys lining the tub’s edge. Tetsurou doesn’t know, and he doesn’t particularly care.

“At least I’ll be seeing more of you,” he says as the water level in the tub falls, eventually swirling around the drain. There’s a tiny silver lining, and he has a sneaking suspicion that this—searching out tiny upsides to live—is about to become an even larger part of his life than it had been before. He isn't sure whether to laugh or cry.   

His hands shake as he buttons Eri’s pajamas. It’s barely mid-afternoon, but he can’t imagine leaving the house, so he slips his own pajama bottoms on, too.

His cabinets aren’t full like his parents’ were but he has enough, and as he situates Eri in her high chair, lunch in front of her, he lets his shoulders slump. He looks at his apartment in a new light, and suddenly, even its flaws seem forgivable. There’s a crack in the ceiling (which his landlord has been promising to fix for months), and the backsplash is chipped. One of the blinds in his living room is missing, and he can barely fit a crib into his bedroom, but it’s their _home_ and Tetsurou can’t bear the thought of being elsewhere. He hopes, hopes more than anything, that he won’t have to live elsewhere for some time.

Diverting his attention from the crack in the ceiling, he reaches for where his phone is nestled in his back pocket and shakes his head.

[16:52] **tetsurou:**

i lost my job

[16:53] **tetsurou:**

i dont kn

He nearly declines when Kenma calls, because the red button replaces the _n_ key, where his finger had previously rested over. Instead, he picks up after a moment of thought.

“Kenma, hi.”

For all the conversations they’ve had over the years, Tetsurou las led a general majority of them, coaxed Kenma into it and spoken about his day. Today, though—and Tetsurou is ever so grateful for this—Kenma takes the conversational reins, doesn’t beat around the bush.

“Are you okay?” he asks slowly, not entertaining Tetsurou’s reflexive attempt at small talk. Each syllable he speaks weighs heavy, establishing its own presence.

Tetsurou lets a beat of silence pass, and then another. Between his teeth, he chews the inside of his cheek, only stopping to let out a small hiss of pain when he stops paying attention.

“Kuro,” Kenma repeats, patient and kind and calm. Tetsurou could cry, but he doesn’t. He manages a shaky inhale and shrugs his shoulders despite the fact that Kenma can’t see.

“Immediately, yes,” Tetsurou promises. “Yes, we’ll be— fine. She’s okay, so.” He gives a weak laugh, shooting a glance over to Eri’s high chair. “You know, that’s all that matters to me.”

“You’re a good dad,” Kenma says after a moment of thought. “She’s lucky to have you—but you’re _sure_ you’re okay?”

“Okay. Yes. I—we're _okay_ ,” Tetsurou assures, and it feels suspiciously like a lie, but he doesn’t dare say so. He clutches the phone with white knuckles, tries his best to match his breaths to Kenma’s. There’s some rustling on the other end, and while neither of them speak, he’s relieved that Kenma hasn’t asked him to hang up.

He keeps his phone nestled between his cheek and shoulder, where it vibrates with a text from his sister; he’d texted her something vague on the train ride home, though now that she’s responded, Tetsurou doesn’t have it within himself to answer.

His shoulders slump, and while he can’t imagine Kenma minds staying on the phone, there _must_ be other ways he’d rather be spending his time.

He mumbles a flimsy excuse—the baby needs him—but she still sits content in her high chair across from him. Tetsurou leans back against the counter, and while it presses into the small of his back, he doesn’t dare move.

Meiko texts him twice more, one after the other, and he flicks the switch on his phone over to silent, pocketing it once more. It’s unfair to worry her, and while he knows this somewhere deep down, it’s not exactly at the forefront of his mind.

Time crawls inside his apartment, and Tetsurou remains unconvinced that any at all is passing until his doorbell rings. He certainly hasn’t invited anybody over—even Meiko wouldn’t come unannounced. When Tetsurou opens the door, a twenty-something year old he’s never seen stands clutching a brown bag with something illegible scrawled on the front. Half taken aback, he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, but they only shake their head before departing.

Tetsurou doesn’t have it in him to question where the food had come from; he’s too exhausted to cook, and it’s more than enough for two—even three—meals.

It’s only as he packs away the leftovers that he realizes the bag says _Kozume_.

* * *

When Meiko finds out, two days later, that Tetsurou has lost his job, she doesn’t ask him to visit her. She _insists_ , and minutes after he hangs up the phone, it alerts him to an email from her which contains a train ticket for that afternoon.

Which—it’s not bad, and being on the train is calming. It shakes gentle and even, and though it’s slightly crowded, nobody sits to his left, so he’s able to stretch slightly. Eri is still well-rested from her nap, which had stretched into the beginning of the ride. Tetsurou allows his thoughts to quiet for the time being, which is a relief. They haven’t stopped racing since three mornings ago.

She waits, too, at the train station, hugs him and the baby with open arms and gestures towards the exit sign.

Being in his hometown is—it’s strange, though very little has changed. They drive past the Lawson that he had worked at sixteen, past the park where a girl had confessed to him in third year (and, subsequently, where Tetsurou had turned her down) and past their parents’ street, even. Tetsurou wonders if they know he’s here. He surely didn’t tell them, so unless Meiko did, they remain in the dark.    

Meiko makes a sharp turn into her driveway, and Tetsurou jolts slightly. It’s been a year, practically, since he’s been around here to visit her, though it mostly feels like no time has passed at all.

“It’s quieter than I remembered it,” he says as he steps through the doorway. The car seat that Eri sleeps in tugs at his left arm, dead weight. He sets it down and removes his shoes, stepping on the backs and discarding them to the side.

“Iseri is out walking the dog, I think,” she says. When Tetsurou glances up, he notices an empty hook at the front door, likely there to hold a leash.

Tetsurou hasn’t seen Meiko’s boyfriend— _fiance_ , he quickly corrects himself—since he left for college at eighteen years old, when the two of them had moved in together.

“It’s good that you’re here,” Meiko says while Tetsurou crouches in front of the car seat. The room is bright, and Tetsurou blinks in the sunlight, pulling a blanket over the front of it.

Meiko’s home is small, still slightly stark. It’s slightly too reminiscent of their childhood home for comfort, walls barren and bright and white.

She’ll fill it up with— _what_ , exactly? Wedding photos, certainly, potted plants, and books, since Iseri is still in school.

The emptiness is not a decision, not a permanent state of being like their home had been as children, but an in-between. There are still traces of inhabitants: Meiko’s favorite tea cup sits perched on the kitchen counter, half full. Iseri’s shoes are missing from the rack to the left of the door, and a basket of dog toys lies on its side, toys spilling out like some sort of cornucopia.

“I’m glad to be here,” he says, and he means it, truthfully. The circumstances are less than ideal, and if he hadn’t been forced, he would never have found himself returning to his hometown, though it’s certainly necessary.

Meiko opens her mouth to respond, but the front door opens and a large dog, curly and white barges in, runs straight to Meiko and leaps up, paws on her thighs. Her leash drags behind her, tangles on a lamp and pulls her back down. The lamp nearly clatters to the floor, but Iseri just barely catches it.

So, this must be a usual occurrence. The house seems to come alive, then, with the addition of Iseri and the dog. Meiko has hardly been engaged six months, has only lived in this house a handful of years, but it feels like a _home_.

They’re okay, Tetsurou and Meiko. For the guidance and love they had lacked growing up, they’re okay. They’re more than okay, each with their own small family, each with more than enough love to compensate for what had been loss.

All things considered, the Kuroo children are fine. They had been born out of convenience, and if Tetsurou had ever doubted that, one look at their family home would prove him twice over; the walls are lined not with family photos, but diplomas, the calendar full not with clubs and school activities, but with meetings and business luncheons.

They had never been neglected, never had a want for anything material, or, never _needed_ to want anything material), but had always lacked the warmth Tetsurou finds himself desperately trying to provide to Eri.

He’s a better parent because of them—or, in spite of them.

When Eri wakes up, slightly disoriented, Meiko is the first to croon over her, which is of little shock to anybody. Nimble hands unbuckle her straps, and she coos and holds her close, thin blanket draped over her shoulder.

It almost startles Tetsurou, how easily she calms his daughter, and he’s absolutely certain she’ll be just as loving to her own child in the future,. He wonders, as Meiko presses her cheek to Eri’s, if their parents will take interest in their other grandchildren, when that time does come.

Will they tell their friends? Will they give her tiny clothes, little parcels wrapped in brown paper? Will they visit her in the hospital? They certainly hadn’t done any of this for _his_ child.

He isn’t bitter—definitely not for himself, and not really on Eri’s behalf, because they wouldn’t have been stellar grandparents even if they _had_ been excited for him to have a child.  There’s no great loss there, and yet, Tetsurou still feels it at times, tugging and present and persistent. He wishes it would go away, wishes they would love her. 

“She’s so well-behaved,” Meiko praises from where she sits, legs crossed. Her tone is quiet, and Tetsurou notices her gaze flick between the clock and the front door before settling once more in front of her.

It all feels astonishingly average, much more so than he had expected. Meiko doesn’t bring up his job, doesn’t ask him how he’s planning to make ends meet, doesn’t really pry at all. It’s entirely unlike her, because Tetsurou has never known her _not_ to pry.

When he was in high school, she had constantly tried to meddle regarding his relationship (or, lack of) with Kenma, and had nearly spoiled Iseri’s plans to propose to her six months ago. She and Tetsurou had fought on more than one occasion while they were teenagers over her tendency to interfere.

But, she seems to understand that he needs peace and quiet, and as he starts to thank her for this, Eri crawls towards him, stumbling when she reaches forward.

Scooping her up, he sinks back into the couch and reaches his arm out when Meiko hands him a bottle that he’d left in the fridge. And, though he takes it and thanks her, she remains distracted, throwing a glance towards the door again.

He almost doesn’t notice when Meiko heads in that direction, more engrossed with Eri, who sprawls across his lap.

He mentally chastises himself for his lack of observational skill—though it’s less so that he hadn’t _thought_ of this as a possibility, and more so that he hadn’t thought Meiko would actually do this.

He doesn’t have a strong reaction, but then, he hadn’t thought intensely about how he might react to seeing his parents, so it isn’t a surprise to him.

“You didn’t tell me you were having company,” he says mildly, fixing his gaze back on Eri, who whines as if she’s noticed the tension in the room.

His mother and father wear their work clothes, which is _also_ no surprise. In the hallway, a pair of loafers sit next to his mother’s low heels. He hasn’t looked at their faces, hasn’t made eye contact with either of them and doesn’t plan to, but they haven’t changed any. He knows this.

“I may—” Meiko tries. “I forgot to mention it, I suppose.”

“Tetsurou,” his father says, and he still doesn’t look up. “It’s polite to acknowledge—”

“It’s _polite?_ ” Tetsurou scoffs, “What’s polite is to respect that I wanted to keep distance, since both of you could not have made it more clear that you wanted nothing to do with her.” He feels sick, and plays with the idea of excusing himself to the bathroom because of this.

His mother clicks his tongue between her teeth, leaning against the corner wall. “Twenty years old, a _father_ , and he’s still just as ornery as a child.”

Tetsurou winds tight, like a jack-in-the-box. His parents crank and crank, and Tetsurou channels all his effort into trying not to explode.

“She looks more grown than we had expected, I think,” his father observes, shifting his weight from one socked foot to the other. Tetsurou presses up against the top of the jack-in-the-box. If they try to act pleasant towards him, he doesn't doubt the bitterness will become too much for him to ignore.

“It’s really amazing how much people grow when you remove yourself from their lives,” Tetsurou deadpans. “She says dad, now. She _crawls!_ She’s smart and sweet and you couldn’t have been more wrong about this whole situation.”

“Tetsurou,” his mother interjects. “Don’t you see how immature you are being? Your father and I love you—we do—but you can’t possibly _not_ see the implications of your decision. Frankly, it's irresponsible.”

Across the room, Meiko worries her bottom lip between her incisors, and Iseri wraps an arm around her waist. If the situation had been different, Tetsurou might feel bad for the guilt she's experiencing, but he feels little besides aggravation in the moment.

His mother frowns, and Tetsurou makes a moment of eye contact. She has new frown lines, but the same cool demeanor Tetsurou had come to know over his childhood.

“Do you mind if I hold her?” she finally asks, softening slightly. She steps forward, and Tetsurou sinks back into the couch, setting the bottle off to the side.

Tetsurou purses his lips slightly, and almost considers telling her that he does mind, absolutely, but it dawns on him that she knows nothing of Eri’s temperament. And, for as calm as she is, she _has_ been cranky lately. Tetsurou has no doubt that it’s due to her newfound teeth, but there’s no reason for him to tell his mother that.

“Go ahead,” he says, standing up from the couch. When he hands her to his mother, her shoulders stiffen, and she looks just as unnatural holding his baby as she had holding her own children, if photos are anything to go by.

Really, he doesn’t blame Eri for her discomfort. His mother holds her at an awkward angle, and while Eri squirms, she doesn’t let up any. He feels half-guilt half-pride when she starts to cry. And while part of him, for Eri’s sake, thinks he should help, watching his mother fumble to try and placate her is entertainment he would pay to see.

“Strange,” he remarks when he stands, reaching out for her. “She never really cries like that.”   

“You’re _still_ far too immature to father a child,” she says flippantly. “With the way you’re speaking to your father and I. Do you honestly think that’s any way to act, Tetsurou?”

“I’ll take her,” Tetsurou says instead of addressing his mother once more. As he takes Eri into his arms, her cries dissipate and she snuffles against the soft cotton of his shirt, comforted by familiarity. It’s a small victory, but he knows it bothers his mother; her lips purse and she crosses her arms, leaning against Tetsurou’s father.

“Done a better job than either of you,” he says, almost silent. If anybody hears him, they don’t comment. He hadn’t known what to expect when his parents met the grandchild they had so quickly rejected.

Had he expected them to love her? Perhaps, and while they might, Tetsurou is certain they will _never_ wholeheartedly accept her—or, his decision to raise her. Had he expected them to be cold towards her? No, not entirely. The lukewarm reaction to their granddaughter coupled with the way they chastise Tetsurou after months of silence on his part, is essentially what he had expected.

At least they’re predictable, if nothing else.

“I think I’ll put her down for a nap,” he says steadily, excusing himself down the hallway. There’s a spare bedroom with a futon pushed in the left corner where he will sleep (or, would have slept, had he not made up his mind to return home after her nap.)

“You’re awfully little for this big bed,” he says, laughing quietly to himself. And, much like her father, it takes her no time to fall asleep, pink cheeks and yellow outfit a stark contrast to the white sheets.

Rather than return, he produces his phone from his pocket and texts Kenma, one hand resting just beside Eri, as if to remain aware.

[14:30] **tetsurou:**

_my parents met the baby today. meiko invited them_

[14:30] **tetsurou:**

_on a totally unrelated note i’m coming back up to tokyo tn_

[14:32]  **tetsurou:**

_don't read into that_

Dimly, he can hear his parents speaking in the living room; it’s pleasantries, mostly, so he stays put in the bedroom, keeping a watchful eye on the rise and fall of Eri’s chest. She’s perfectly good at sleeping, and Tetsurou could easily leave her, door open and light off, but he remains still perched at the bed's corner.

The dull hum of a fourth voice joins in, and Tetsurou pegs it as Iseri. They must, then, be talking about the upcoming wedding. His parents are certainly pleased with Meiko’s—her _lifestyle choice_ is what they had called it. Iseri works in a veterinarian's office and Meiko is a kindergarten teacher. And, unlike Tetsurou, they don’t have any children out of wedlock. How admirable.

Though, Tetsurou thinks to himself, there are far worse things than having a child out of wedlock: marrying and starting a family as a business move, neglecting said children _because_ of your career, and ceasing communication with said child when they need you most. At the very least, Eri has two parents who love her. They’re not together, but they’re certainly happier, certainly more amicable than his own had been.

Tetsurou’s mother had returned to work when he was a mere three weeks old, leaving him in the constant care of a nanny. She’s absent from photos of him blowing out the candles on his second birthday—because she had been taking a business call. His father is no better.

They had provided him and Meiko with so much during their childhood; both of them had tutors, had had all the newest toys as children, and had their material needs met. Tetsurou can’t afford a second bedroom, but he holds enough love to compensate for what had been lost during his formative years. Surely, that counts for something.

Eri wakes, whimpering and reaching out towards Tetsurou with an open hand. Her nose scrunches for a moment until he picks her up from the still neatly made bed, cooing quietly.

“Oh, you didn’t nap long at all,” he observes quietly, running his ring finger along the curve of her cheek. “But, that just means we can get home sooner.”

Placated, she looks up at him through half-lidded eyes and stretches one arm out to her right. He stands, smooths the wrinkles from where he had sat, and slings his backpack over one shoulder.

“As much as I hate to cut this short, it’s time for us to go—” he says, crouching over her car seat. And then, “It was nice to see you both.”

When his mother gives a half smile, he clarifies: “Meiko and Iseri, I meant.”

“Good luck— Tetsurou,” his father says slowly. Tetsurou wants to tell him he doesn’t _need_ luck, but gives a curt nod instead.

Meiko drives him back to the train station. It's surprisingly quiet in her small car except for Eri’s coos in the back seat and the occasional rattle of one of her toys.

Tetsurou doesn’t have it in him to be mad at her, mainly since he’s certain she _thought_ she was being a help (she wasn’t), so as he departs, car seat’s handle in the crook of his elbow, he offers her a small wave—an olive branch.

And he barely, just barely, catches the gesture, but she reciprocates.

* * *

 

His apartment is unchanged, which is to be expected, since he wasn’t gone long, but as Tetsurou walks through the threshold, his shoulders slump with the relief of familiarity.

Eri sleeps in her car seat, and Tetsurou doesn’t dare move her. He doesn’t text anyone to inform them that the pair got home safe, too wound up to do so.

His apartment is quiet, mostly. Eri gives the occasional whine in her sleep, and the floorboards creak as he pads down the hallway to make his bed, but it’s quiet. He can hear his heartbeat hammering incessantly.

His phone vibrates against his leg, and he reluctantly pulls it out, feeling a strange sense of—pride, perhaps—when he realizes it’s from Kenma.

[16:46] **kenma:**

 _i was sleeping but if you want me to come ovr just let me know_.

Warmth pools everywhere—deep in Tetsurou’s stomach, his heart, radiates from his chest out. It’s maybe slightly selfish, but he asks Kenma to come anyway. And, surely if he minded, the offer would never have been put on the table.

He arrives just as Eri begins to rouse, stretching her legs out from under her. She attempts, for a moment, to sit up, only to whine in frustration at the restraints of her car seat, which are still in place.

“Patience, sunshine,” he tells her as he crouches, snapping the buckle with his right hand and twisting the doorknob with his left.

“You look well-rested,” Tetsurou laughs dryly. Eri sits in the crook of his arm, fist quickly finding its way to her mouth. She drools on the front of her outfit, but since that’s entirely unavoidable recently, Tetsurou doesn’t bat an eye.

“Sure,” Kenma agrees. He’s pleasant, quiet as a result of his mid afternoon nap, and he leans against the front door. “She met your parents?” he asks cautiously, eyeing the infant with one eyebrow raised.

“Briefly,” Tetsurou gives. “Uh. My mom tried to hold her, and she cried. Which— I don’t blame her, because she was _so_ stiff, and she’s kind of cranky as is.” He continues to recount the afternoon’s events to the best of his knowledge, tries not to let emotion cloud his retelling. It seeps in, though, like ink to paper.

“I’m glad it happened,” he finally says, which is half true. “At least now I know they’re _still_ horrible, still totally lack compassion, _still—_ ”

“But, you’re here now,” Kenma says. “You don’t have to worry about them.”

“Right,” Tetsurou agrees. He’s here. The baby is here, and she continues to drool, dampening the front of her yellow shirt. His apartment is small, but it’s _enough_ , and if they can manage to stay in it despite the loss of his job, Tetsurou will have no choice other than to fall to his knees and thank any and all religious figures for going easy on him.

“Thanks for coming, by the way,” he says suddenly. “I know I’ve been a lot lately, with losing my job and…” he gestures, empty. “I hope we can stay here. I _hope_ we don’t have to move elsewhere. And seeing my parents today really made me realize how important you are to me.” _‘And to her’_ hangs heavy in the air, unsaid but understood.

“You’ll be okay,” Kenma assures, not meeting Tetsurou’s eye. And, at the words of praise, the slightest hint of pink makes a home on the apples of his cheeks. Tetsurou may have missed it had he not looked carefully, but it’s _there_.

For the second

time that evening, his heartbeat thunders in his head, the loudest thing in his tiny apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to thank everyone who has said kind things about this fic - it really means a lot to me. I'm having a lot of fun with it and I hope that you are, too. also thank you if you've been sticking with it even through the somewhat sporadic updates! I graduate school this week so hopefully they will be less so few + far between..  
> as always if you wanna talk about this fic i have [twitter](www.twitter.com/sakurakozume) and [tumblr](kenmatetsu.tumblr.com) and i'd love to hear your thoughts!! thank you for reading


	6. everything in transit

When Tetsurou wakes up on a bleary, rainy Tuesday morning, Eri is still asleep beside him, and he breathes a sigh of relief. It’s probably the worst she’s slept since she was just a few months old; Tetsurou doesn’t even think they managed three hours of sleep between the two of them .

So, he’s surprised to see the daylight. It  feels  as if it should be the middle of the night, but the birds chirp outside his bedroom window and the clock beside his bed reads  _ 7:40.  _ He runs a hand through his hair, willing his eyes to stay open, which is a tremendous effort.

Eri is sick—probably with a cold. She’d cried incessantly throughout the better part of the night, struggling to breathe through her nose. And she just looks uncomfortable in her sleep, cheeks red and a slight frown on her features, and Tetsurou is so completely helpless. 

He’ll have to call Aiko to ask her to schedule a doctor’s appointment, since neither he nor Eri are covered under his employee insurance any longer. It’s certainly too early for Aiko to be awake, so instead, he shoots off a text.

It’s better this way; Aiko has a car, so he doesn’t need to take Eri on the train, which would only make her more miserable, and he’s positive that she and their baby must miss each other. He doesn’t know how she does it; _he_ couldn’t cope with not seeing her for weeks at a time.

But, Tetsurou happens to know that Aiko is on her college break, and the reasonable assumption is that they’ll be seeing her more frequently. And he doesn’t really mind that. It’s good for Eri to be around both her parents, even if Tetsurou is the one she’s mainly comfortable with.

He’s surprised when his phone chimes, and when it causes Eri to stir, he holds his breath, willing her to stay asleep.

[07:42]  **aiko:**

_ I’ll call at 8. Thank you for letting me know. _

 

As Tetsurou had expected, Aiko calls just a few minutes after eight. (She’s always been punctual; even when she had had their daughter, it had been on her due date exactly.) It comes in handy, though, because Eri is just beginning to wake up when she says she’ll head over, since they have an opening for her in an hour’s time. 

Tetsurou picks his battles; dressing Eri isn’t worth it, since it will serve to do little more than upset her further. Instead of doing so, he lies back, propping her up on his chest, and pulls his blanket over the both of them, quietly humming in an attempt to soothe her.

He could be spending his time job hunting, or working on his resume, or  _ something _ , all of which he’s been doing lately, to no avail, but he can’t dream of moving Eri. Being in such close proximity to Tetsurou is the only thing calming her, and he can’t stand the thought of her being more uncomfortable than she has to be. Productivity takes a back seat to his daughter, as do most of Tetsurou’s other responsibilities. 

She falls asleep, of  _ course _ , just as Aiko calls to announce her arrival, and cries the whole way down the stairs (and most of the way to the doctor), until she falls back asleep in her car seat.

“Will you two stay in your apartment?” Aiko asks when they’ve settled in the waiting room, car seat set on the floor between their legs. “I mean—since you lost your job.” She seems to backpedal, then, unsure if she’s pushing her boundaries, and shakes her head. “I don’t mean to intrude, of course. Uh. I just wasn’t sure if you had found a new job.”

As much as Tetsurou wills his cheeks not to heat up, they do, as he has to admit that  _ no,  _ he hasn’t found a new job yet. Rent is due next week, and his landlord is particularly unforgiving. So, if he doesn’t find some way to pay it—and it’s not looking good for him—he, and, more importantly, Eri, are going to have nowhere to stay.

He could swallow his pride and ask his parents, though that would be particularly unfair to Eri, and he’s not eager (or particularly willing) to put her in a situation where she’s unwanted. He can’t intrude on Meiko and Iseri, even though he's almost completely certain that they would insist that he wasn’t burdensome. 

Kenma isn’t at a point, Tetsurou doesn’t think, where he’d be able to live around Tetsurou’s daughter, and he doesn’t want to cause any of them the unnecessary stress.

Perhaps, if he was desperate, he could ask Bokuto or Sawamura, who would both be more than willing to have him  _ and  _ his baby stay for some time, but even their welcomes would only extend for so long.

“No,” he admits, casting a glance downward. “I haven’t found anything yet; I’ve had two job interviews, but nothing.”

Tetsurou can’t look at Aiko, can’t stand the sympathetic gaze she’s giving him. Being pitied is not new but still unpleasant, but he doesn’t want the pity from her, doesn’t  _ need  _ it.

His break comes in the form of a nurse who calls for Eri, and while the appointment passes without incident, he still half feels as if Aiko is pitying him.  

“I have a spare room,” she tells him as they situate Eri in the back seat of her car. She’s secure in her car seat, and while she doesn’t make much noise, her bottom lip trembles and tears gather at the corners of her eyes. Tetsurou would certainly help if he could, but she’s inconsolable.

Would Tetsurou’s pride get in the way? Or would his need to provide for Eri override that? Would his conscience allow him to have Eri around her mother, only to separate them? There are far too many uknowns, and Tetsurou isn’t even sure he’d be able to take Aiko up on her offer.

“I still have my apartment.” 

Aiko looks towards the road, taking one hand from the wheel to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I know, but you said your rent is due in—”

“Nine days.”

“Right, nine days. So, if you need somewhere to get back on your feet, you  know  you could stay at mine until you could afford rent again, right?”

“I know,” Tetsurou agrees. It’s less so that Aiko wants him to stay, (more that she doesn’t want their daughter to be without a home, which is understandable). Tetsurou would be worried if that weren’t the case. His job search has been fruitless thus far, and even if he does manage to secure a new job before rent is due, he’s not going to have enough to pay on time. He might as well start packing his things.

Eri’s whining from the back only grows louder, and Tetsurou is ever so relieved when they reach his apartment. Neither of them mention Aiko’s offer, and he hopes he doesn’t  _ have  _ to bring it up ever again, but Tetsurou can’t say his outlook is overwhelmingly positive (or, positive whatsoever).

Eri’s crying hardly lets up, and by the time Tetsurou puts her to sleep for her afternoon nap, he feels as if  _ he  _ could cry, too.

* * *

 

“My neighbor is watching her for an hour or two, which is  _ so  _ nice.” Tetsurou presses the speaker button on his phone, setting it down on top of an empty coffee can. Behind him, a pot of water just barely starts to boil, and he hums quietly to himself.

“So you can get some packing done?”

“I’ve gotten some in,” he agrees. “Her things, mostly—clothes and stuff.”

His landlord hadn’t minced her words, and while Tetsurou hadn’t been shocked to find that they would no longer be permitted to stay, he had still found himself reeling, slightly. The bags under his eyes this morning make obvious the fact that he had been up the majority of the night prior.

A few phone calls later, and Tetsurou had secured their spot on his friends’ couch for the week, which was incredibly kind, so much so that he nearly refused, had nearly let his pride get in the way.

“And you’re sure you didn’t need help packing?” he asks, seemingly unconvinced. He breaks up slightly over the phone, but not so much so that Tetsurou can’t make him out.

“We don’t have a lot of stuff.”

Tetsurou can hear some shuffling in the background, and a loud voice announcing, “I’m  _ home _ !” and then, “you missed me, right?”

After a quick apology, his friend dismisses himself, and Tetsurou returns his attention to the pot on the stove, which is dangerously close to boiling over.

* * *

 

It’s easy to move with a baby under two conditions: one, if you’re sure to have someone who is infatuated with the baby, who won’t put her down for anything, and two, if you had few belongings to begin with. Tetsurou is incredibly grateful he meets both of these conditions, because it’s raining, which only serves to make the walk up three flights of stairs all the more miserable.

It doesn’t take long at all, and as Tetsurou pushes one of four taped cardboard boxes up against the wall, he thanks his hosts for the third— _ fourth?— _ time that day, even though it doesn’t feel like enough. 

“Someone’s bonded with uncle Koutarou,” Bokuto says proudly, grinning from his position on the couch. It’s getting dreary and late, and she sleeps with one cheek pressed against his shirt, completely comfortable and at ease, which is a relief.

They’ll stay for a week at most, because Tetsurou doesn’t want to impose much; he’d promised to cook dinner for the duration of his stay, which is probably the least he can do.

“Every time she sees you,” he agrees, leaning against the kitchen wall and smiling. “She knows good people, I guess.”

Akaashi had been in the apartment briefly in the afternoon before departing for class; Tetsurou definitely doesn’t grasp exactly  _ how  _ busy is, but he’s in medical school, and if Bokuto’s frequent lonely texts are anything to go by, he spends the majority of his time either at the hospital, doing clinicals, or doing other school-related activities.

He’ll be home around eight, which gives them another hour another hour, if Tetsurou remembers correctly.

Tetsurou will cook dinner, and probably wake Eri up to join them, if she doesn’t by the time Akaashi arrives. She’s content enough for the time being, but if he lets her go too long without eating, she’s liable to become sullen, which isn’t unlike her father.

They’re similar in a lot of ways; they sport the same bedhead, both love to eat, sleep, and laugh. Neither of them are really morning people, and from what he’s able to tell, Eri loves cats just as much as he does. If he hadn’t known better, and had it not been impossible, Tetsurou would be convinced she didn’t have a second parent, because they harbor  _ so  _ many similarities.

“My arm’s falling asleep,” Bokuto mumbles, taking his bottom lip between his front teeth. It’s positioned just under Eri, and if he moves it, she’s definitely going to wake up. Tetsurou often finds himself in just the same predicament. It’s unavoidable, really.

“She has a way of doing that,” he agrees, frowning sympathetically. “And she looks so peaceful, you can’t even be mad about it. Or, I can’t, anyway.”

“I can’t,” Bokuto agrees, glancing downwards. It’s slightly foreign, but overwhelmingly pleasant to have somebody who seems to love Eri as much as he does. 

Instead of cooking dinner or holding the baby like he should, he texts Kenma instead, tells him that they’ve arrived safely. He takes a photo of Eri sleeping on Bokuto’s chest and attaches that, too, though he deletes it after a moment of thought.

Kenma doesn’t text him back, and later that evening, Tetsurou falls asleep on the couch, his daughter asleep behind him.

* * *

 

Bokuto isn’t home on Tuesday afternoons, but Akaashi is. It’s his only afternoon off, actually, and Tetsurou is grateful for the company, even if he’s mostly just quiet. It’s nice to just have somebody present, someone to chat back and forth with on occasion. He’d lacked that in his old apartment, mostly, and when the time comes for him to go back to living alone, he’ll definitely feel the loss.

“There’s a bookstore by campus that’s hiring,” Akaashi says, gaze flicking up over the screen of his laptop. He and Tetsurou make eye contact for a moment before they each look away. “It’s not far from here, obviously.”

“Bookstore,” Tetsurou says thoughtfully. He could make that work; he’s not picky when it comes to his job. He just needs enough to support Eri and himself. His previous job in sales had done barely that, but it’d been enough for them to scrape by with the bare essentials. They’d never had much, but they’d been happy, and they had have each other—they still do. “Bookstore, huh. I could do that.”

“Have you had luck elsewhere?” Akaashi asks, voice muffled behind a teacup.

“A handful of interviews, and like, seven or eight applications,” Tetsurou says, sighing. “But—uh, I obviously haven’t found anything concrete.”

He’s been here for four days; he has three more days before he has to find somewhere else to stay. Bokuto and Akaashi had insisted that they didn’t mind, but Tetsurou feels guilty as is for bringing both his hectic life  _ and  _ his baby into their home. It must be difficult for Akaashi to study with Eri around, since she’s on the go, always laughing or playing or crawling.

She’s not bad. As far as babies her age go, she’s remarkably well-behaved, but not mellow in the slightest, much like Tetsurou himself. And while he’s used to her, used to keeping a constant eye on her, Bokuto and Akaashi are not.

Dimly, Tetsurou is aware that Akaashi is speaking to him once more, but he can’t make it out and he doesn’t bother asking again, letting his eyes go out of focus. The room fuzzes and blurs into a series of indistinguishable shapes, and it’s… oddly peaceful. Tetsurou shakes his head.

Beside him on the couch, his phone vibrates with a text from Aiko.

[04:31]  **aiko:**

Are you and the baby still staying at your friends?

Tetsurou frowns and squints at the tiny phone screen, trying to decipher exactly why she’s asking.

[04:32]  **tetsurou:**

we’re still here. i’ll only stay three more days

His phone quiets, then, and he sets it down. Across from him, Akaashi seems to have abandoned the conversation in favor of scratching a pen against paper, presumably something school related.

Wordlessly, Tetsurou walks the length of their hallway, turns left, and smiles upon noting that Eri is awake. She doesn’t seem to have been in this state for long, though, because her eyes are still bleary and she reaches out to him with a tired whine and a whimper of his name.

It’s still strange to him, because her words—or, her lone word—is incredibly new. He’s not just Kuroo, or Kuro, or Tetsurou anymore, but  _ dad _ . He’s been so for almost eight months, and almost seventeen if you count the time before she was born (Tetsurou doesn’t), but hearing the name, hearing the name out of his daughter’s mouth is still shocking to him. 

“Sleep well, sunshine?” he asks, grinning. She crawls to him, usually, but today she still lies back, hands above her head. She’s either too tired or not awake enough to move, and Tetsurou certainly isn’t one to rush her, so he perches on the edge of the bed and waits.

And, sure enough, she gradually wakes and crawls towards him, setting a tiny hand on his lap until he pulls her up to sitting. She smiles brightly, which is a sight Tetsurou will probably never tire of. 

He hears the front door open somewhere in the distance, hears Bokuto’s booming and bright voice, but decides ultimately that he’s better off staying put. Eri seems slightly overwhelmed by Bokuto at times, anyway

* * *

 

“I want you to stay with me,” Aiko says. “Her. I want her to stay with me, and she  needs   _you_ ,” she says with a quiet sigh.

Tetsurou’s pride—it might not allow that. He’d left Bokuto and Akaashi’s that morning, left a small thank you gift, and departed on his way, backpack and baby in tow. And, when Aiko called him, he felt slightly too guilty not to answer, which is exactly how he finds himself sitting across from her in a coffee shop.

“I don’t want to impose,” he says. Eri sits on Aiko’s lap, reaching up towards her necklace with a dazed expression. Tetsurou can hardly take her eyes off of her.

“You’re not imposing!” Aiko insists. “She’s your daughter, yes, but she’s mine, too. I’d… like her to be in a stable situation until you can get back on your feet.”

Tetsurou mumbles under his breath, “I could find somewhere to stay.”

“I don’t want you to have to worry,” Aiko says. “I still have some of her things from the first few weeks, and there’s a second bedroom. I  _ want  _ you to have somewhere to take care of her.”

He’s going to protest again, nearly, but Aiko’s stern expression—eyebrow raised, shoulders slightly forward, convinces him to stay silent.

“Okay?” she asks, softening. She offers her hand to Eri, gaze flickering down.

“Okay.”

* * *

 

He comes that afternoon, after a quiet train ride and a nap in the park for the baby, and texts Aiko to let her know. It feels strange, somehow, and almost inappropriate; the last time they were in this apartment together, Eri was a newborn and there was almost a sort of haze of unreality that lingered in the walls. They'd barely left the house (only ever to run out to the store for diapers or other supplies).

It hadn’t been unpleasant, except for the sleepless nights and the crying fits, but they had eventually had to part ways, Tetsurou to pursue fatherhood and a career, and Aiko to pursue her education. The separation had been mutual, though their actual relationship had ended months prior to Eri’s birth.

Aiko’s apartment is on the fourth floor, and definitely bigger than Tetsurou’s, which makes sense, naturally. His own job in sales had been humble; Aiko is working her way through law school, not to mention that her parents are there to help her. Tetsurou doesn’t have that advantage.

‘I’m glad you came,” she says, reaching her arms out. Their daughter reaches out to her, too, from where she sits in Tetsurou’s arms, and he sets his shoes and her car seat down in the entryway.

“I applied to a job yesterday. Akaashi—one of my friends that we stayed with—told me about it, so hopefully I’ll be able to find a place soon.”

“Just, don’t rush yourself,” Aiko says. She frowns for a moment, seemingly paused in thought, before heading down the hallway with their daughter, leaving Tetsurou to linger awkwardly in the entryway.

He hadn’t ever thought he’d be in her apartment again, unless it was to drop Eri off, so his presence feels slightly inappropriate, like he’s intruding somewhere he shouldn’t be allowed. It’s a stark contrast to his old apartment; her walls are white and bright, floorboards shiny, and while the decoration is decidedly feminine, it’s not overly so. Overall, it’s very her.

Tetsurou stays put until Aiko emerges once more with their daughter, dressed in clothes that he doesn’t recognize, and clothes that he probably couldn’t afford.

“You can make yourself at home,” she coaxes. “Not much has changed since you’ve been here last, so you know where it all is.” 

“Right,” he agrees, quiet and complacent. It’s kind—no, more than kind—for her to allow him to stay, and though she keeps repeating that he’s not imposing, Tetsurou is more eager than ever to find a place of his own once more.

* * *

 

If he feels inappropriate being in Aiko’s apartment, though that feeling has lessened the longer he stays, then it  _ definitely  _ feels inappropriate to invite a friend over, which is how he and the baby wind up in Kenma’s apartment on a Thursday evening.

Eri is nestled between Tetsurou and Kenma. Rather, Eri is sprawled out with her lower body across her father’s lap and her upper body across Kenma’s, while they play video games. How she’s still asleep, Tetsurou doesn’t know, but he’s certainly not about to wake her.

This is easily the most normal his relationship to Kenma has felt in some time, and if Tetsurou could make this evening something tactile, something he could hold forever, he would never hesitate to do so.

“I let you win,” he says when a red symbol flashes on screen, signaling his loss.

“You did not.”

“I did.”

“Not,” Kenma insists. They both know this, and they both fall silent.

There’s an ease to the way they interact, and when Kenma flicks his gaze down to the baby sleeping on his lap, Tetsurou’s heart feels like it might fall out of his chest and onto the floor in front of them. Acknowledgement on Kenma’s part had been mostly minimal, and Tetsurou takes what he can get, though his suspicions that Kenma might not truly mind his daughter are growing.

“She looks comfortable,” Kenma finally says. “I don’t understand how, but she does.”

“It’s because she’s half me,” Tetsurou says with a puff of laughter. “Falling asleep anywhere is a Kuroo family trademark, is it not?”

Kenma nods, thoughtful more than anything. In her sleep, Eri reaches a hand up and wraps it around Kenma’s finger, gripping it tight.

Tetsurou waits with bated breath, trying his best to read Kenma’s face, which gives away precisely  _ nothing _ . He doesn’t pull his hand away, even if he seems slightly stiff, which is a sight that Tetsurou tries to commit to memory forever. There have been a handful of moments like this, such as Kenma and the baby falling asleep on the couch, but few of them had lasted more than a handful of seconds, and even fewer of them had been while Kenma was awake.

“She likes you, I think,” he says. He speaks with an air of caution, as if at any moment, Kenma might choose to take away his finger, might shift so that only Tetsurou is holding her. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but again, Tetsurou certainly isn’t going to rush it.

“Babies usually don’t.”

Tetsurou grins, proud. “I guess she’s just different, huh?” And then, tentatively, he asks, “You don’t mind her, uh. Sleeping on you, right? And holding your hand?”

Kenma just shrugs. “I’ve had worse.”

It’s not much, not a full on  _ yes _ , but it’s definitely not a no. Tetsurou can’t pinpoint the last time he felt so complete.

That night, Kenma doesn’t ask him to sleep on the couch, and while Tetsurou could very easily join him in the double bed, he stays there only until Kenma falls asleep. It’s easier, that way, so he doesn’t get his already rising hopes up.

* * *

 

He gets a job offer on that following Monday. It isn’t much; he’ll be a receptionist at a doctor’s office, but it pays slightly more than his old job, and there’s a daycare in the same shopping center. He doesn’t think twice before accepting it.

He texts. He texts Kenma, Bokuto, Akaashi, Meiko, and Sawamura, and he tells Aiko when she comes home from school, briefcase in one hand and travel mug in the other.

“That’s enough to support her?” she asks, slightly skeptical.

“I’d make more than my old job, so we’d be able to swing it.”

“You’d have to find a way to afford childcare, wouldn’t you?” she asks, quiet. “Would you be able to afford that, too?”

Tetsurou isn’t certain, but he nods anyway. He’ll start on Monday, so before then, he’ll have to figure out a solution; it gives him a grand total of four days, which, somehow seems like too much time and not enough, all at once.

It’s hard. The job doesn’t fix everything, which,  _ fine _ , Tetsurou hadn’t expected it to. After all, his unemployment had been only a tiny puzzle piece in the grand scheme of things. There’s still, as Aiko had pointed out, childcare. There are still finances to figure out, and a living situation, still his sometimes-messy-sometimes-peaceful relationship with Kenma, and he’s still a single parent, still Eri’s main caretaker.

So, no, the job doesn’t fix everything, but it’s a start, and it’s something going right for once, and if Tetsurou can keep up this streak, then perhaps, the other puzzle pieces might begin to fall into place, too.

He can only hope. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really appreciate how patient everyone has been when it comes to this fic - i spent the month of june preparing for, and then actually moving halfway across the country, so to say i've been busy would be an understatement! nonetheless, i do hope you enjoy <3  
> you can find me at peachizuku on both twitter and tumblr if you'd like to talk about the fic!! i always love hearing your thoughts


	7. blue raspberry

Tetsurou still can’t shake the feeling that he’s an intruder in Aiko’s apartment, not entirely unwelcome, but able to stay there only because of their baby. Whether or not Aiko feels this way is indiscernible, and so Tetsurou tries not to step on her toes too much. He cleans up each and every toy Eri leaves out, tucks his shoes in the closet, and doesn’t dare leave a dish unwashed.

It feels strange to have their daughter in this setting, one which isn’t exactly fit for a child. Aiko has hardwood floors and tile. The shelves in her living room are lined with breakables, and Tetsurou has had approximately nine heart attacks, because none of her outlets are covered. 

It’s a far cry from his old apartment, tiny and cramped, but still safe for her. Eri will never recall the apartment which she had been raised in for the first eight months of her life. She’ll never recall the way Tetsurou bathed her in the kitchen sink when she was a newborn, or the way that she’d fallen asleep on his chest, completely at home, when he brought her home from Aiko’s for the first time.

His newfound job isn’t bad; he comes home exhausted but makes good money, and the work is relatively simple. There’s a daycare center two doors down, and so they don’t need to find a babysitter daily. Eri seems to be doing well, getting along with other children her age, and when he picks her up at the end of the day, she’s always delighted to see him. 

So, when he gets a call midday on a Friday, he isn’t exactly sure what to make of it; he learns that she’s unwell, having spiked a fever and being generally miserable.

And, as such, Tetsurou spends the next 45 minutes of his workday worrying his lip between his teeth and attempting to coordinate her care with somebody else. He calls Aiko, who, to nobody’s surprise, is in class. He calls Bokuto, who doesn’t answer, even calls Sawamura, who  _ does  _ answer but is at work.

When it’s time for his lunch break, he still has no care lined up for her, though his thumb lingers over Kenma’s contact. Would he, in a pinch, be willing to watch her for Tetsurou? Or would he be comfortable doing so? Would he come out to Tetsurou’s workplace? Does Tetsurou trust him with her? (Yes, without a doubt.)

So, he enters the front door with his phone tucked up between his cheek and his shoulder, sucks in a deep breath, and waits for Kenma to answer. Just as he’s handed his squirming, rosy-cheeked daughter, the line clicks on.

“Kuro?”

“Ah—Kenma!” he greets. “Hold on just a moment.” Tetsurou pauses, then, pressing his free hand to Eri’s forehead. “Hi, hey. I have a big favor to ask.”

Kenma hums quiet acknowledgement, and Tetsurou can practically visualize the face he’s making—lips pursed, one eyebrow arched.

“I’m at work. Well, I’m on my lunch break, and I just had to pick the baby up. She’s feverish, and Aiko isn’t at her apartment. I don’t really trust anyone else to watch her, especially if she’s sick.” The last part surprises even him; he’d called a handful of people before calling Kenma, and, oddly enough, found him breathing a sigh of relief when nobody answered. Kenma may not always be enthusiastic about children, but he’s nothing if not reliable. Tetsurou trusts him with his life.

“You’re asking me to get her?” he confirms, voice slow.

“Asking. Begging, whichever you prefer,” Tetsurou lilts. “I’d keep her, but I’m not sure they’ll let me, and I don’t want her around sick people if she’s already unwell. I’d normally just—” 

Kenma coughs, and Tetsurou snaps out of his monologue.

“I could—you trust me?” 

“More than anyone, Kenma.”

Kenma, with the promise to head out soon, hangs up, and Tetsurou doesn’t know the last time he’d been so grateful to somebody. He stands just in the waiting area, Eri blinking up at him through watery brown eyes. She isn’t crying like she had been before he arrived, but there’s an air of discontent.

Tetsurou just hopes that Kenma arrives soon. In actuality, he has to take her behind the desk with him following his lunch break. It’s not much; she’s just in her car seat, and actually seems to come close to falling asleep when Kenma walks through the glass doors, looking slightly disgruntled.

Tetsurou blinks at him. “Is that my shirt?”  

“Worry about your baby,” Kenma chides. 

(For the record, though, it most certainly is Tetsurou’s shirt.)

* * *

 

He texts Kenma intermittently throughout the day, just  _ she usually naps around an hour  _ and  _ you can feed her cereal if she’s hungry  _ and, no less than four times,  _ how are you both holding up _ ?

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Kenma; that isn’t the case at all. Rather, something gnaws at him, convinces him that this is going to push Kenma over the edge. He’s never been alone with Eri before—Tetsurou isn’t sure he’s been alone with  _ any  _ baby when he takes a moment to think about it—and had been hesitant, especially in the first few months, to spend any amount of time around her.

He worries his bottom lip between his teeth, spares flicking glances between the door and the clock, counts the moments until he can leave. And, after some time, the clock ticks over to five.

[17:01]  **tetsurou:**

_ i’m heading home now _

[17:02]  **tetsurou:**

_ thank you so much for watching her i really appreciate it . _

* * *

 

He makes it to Kenma’s apartment—after one missed train and one delay—eager not only to see his daughter, but to see how Kenma had done with her. He’d had her alone for just under six hours, with no panicked texts to Tetsurou. That’s certainly a good sign.

He knocks.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wonders how Kenma knew how to handle her. Does he recall the way Tetsurou puts her down for naps, or the way he swaddles her? Does he remember sitting up on the kitchen counter the first time Tetsurou attempted to feed her actual food? Or, had he had to search online? Had it come naturally to him?

Lost in thought, he hardly realizes when Kenma opens the door. He’s empty handed. Tetsurou blinks, and opens his mouth to inquire about the whereabouts of his daughter, when he lays an eye on her.  

From where he stands in the doorway, he can make out Eri—if he squints—swaddled in a  _ Zelda  _ blanket, lying on the couch. It’s far from neat, but it’s so quintessentially Kenma that Tetsurou thinks he might die. (His expertise in swaddling is unmatched, anyway.)

“You got her to sleep,” he praises. “No small task, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t,” Kenma agrees. When Tetsurou steps through the doorway, he sighs in relief, an air of familiarity washing over him. 

Kenma’s apartment is so, so  _ him _ . Small video game figurines line the shelves behind his television, and a bundle of cords, along with one of his video game consoles sits beneath it. His dish rack is full of mugs acquired over the years, some with designs or text, some plain. Preliminary sketches from his work litter his coffee table, and Eri continues to sleep on the couch.

Tetsurou’s heart aches, fond and bitter all the same.  

“I don’t think you’re as bad with kids as you say you are,” he says, testing the waters. Kenma’s face is unreadable.

“It’s a little different.” Kenma shrugs. “But she’s—I don’t know. She’s yours, I guess.” 

Eyeing his sleeping child, Tetsurou grins; he sleeps in the exact same position as she does, and her hair looks as if someone has rubbed it with a balloon.

“I don’t have a clue what you mean,” he says, struggling to keep a straight face.

Nodding, Kenma steps away to the side, and Tetsurou approaches the couch where Eri is situated. Gently, not wishing to wake her, he presses his palm to her forehead—still warm. 

“Hey, sunshine,” he breathes. “You wanna get going soon?”

Oblivious, she sleeps. She hardly moves, either, mouth slightly open. If Tetsurou were to pick her up, he highly doubts that she’d wake up.

“Kenma?” he calls before bothering to try. “How long has she been asleep?”

“It’s been…” Kenma pauses, sounding slightly far away. “An hour? Hour and a half, maybe?”

Curious, Tetsurou lifts one of Eri’s arms out of the swaddle. When it drops by her side, she barely stirs. When he prods a little more, she stirs, but ultimately stays asleep. 

And, armed with the knowledge that she’s content in her sleep, Tetsurou gently, slowly lifts her up and proceeds to situate her in the car seat by the side of the couch.

“Can I—she’s really comfortable in your blanket,” he says sheepishly, glancing up at Kenma, who now stands in the doorway of the kitchen. “I can bring it back another day.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Right, I just wanted to make sure, still.” When all's said and done, Eri buckled in her carseat and goodbyes exchanged, Tetsurou still lingers—or, rather, a thought lingers, and so Tetsurou can’t quite bring himself to leave.

_ “ _ What did you mean, then, when you said she’s different?” Perhaps Tetsurou shouldn't ask, perhaps he shouldn’t push too hard, seeing as Kenma had already spent the day alone with the baby.

She sleeps still—in different clothes than she had been in earlier—and while Tetsurou knows he should get going and get her into bed, he remains long enough to hear the answer.

“It’s not as if she’s entirely irrelevant to me,” he finally says. (Or, rather, he mumbles.) “She’s half you, and since you’re  _ you _ —” he stops himself, then.

Tetsurou blinks and bites the inside of his cheek until it breaks, metallic and wet. Kenma doesn’t meet his eye.

“Goodnight, Kuro,” he says after a beat of silence, and then, “Text me when you get back.”

* * *

 

Aiko isn’t back when Tetsurou arrives at the apartment with the baby, and as such, he’s able to relax slightly. While Eri continues to sleep in her car seat, he texts Kenma as promised—and attaches a photo of her alongside it.

[19:19]  **tetsurou:**

i don’t know how you did this but she’s still asleep

[19:21]  **tetsurou:**

is that blanket magic or something 

He falls quiet then, relaxing against the white leather couch. It’s almost eerie how unchanged Aiko’s apartment is; he’d sat on this same couch so many months ago, when he found out that he was going to be a father. He’d been over several times in the months following, sometimes just to check on her, sometimes to talk, and then, there had been the first two weeks of Eri’s life, which had been surreal, to some extent.

Even down to the orchids on her table, (which Tetsurou knows are real, because he’s watched her replace them several times), everything is just how it had been the first time he’d ever stepped through the doors. The upkeep must exhaust her.

The apartment quiets; a fan overhead whirs, and on the floor above, somebody paces in high heels. The baby stirs, stretches her arms above her head, and scrunches her face up, the promise of a cry. And, just as Tetsurou stands to tend to her, keys jingle in the front door. At once, the apartment seems to come alive.

Eri whines lowly, roused from sleep by the activity, and buries her forehead against Tetsurou’s chest. Aiko’s keys clank against the porcelain dish she sets them in, and the tips of her heels click against the wooden floor.

He’s still not, and will probably never be, used to getting into any sort of routine with her. They’re certainly adjusting to the situation, although somebody to parent alongside is… new. He searches for apartments in his free time—on his lunch break, or when everybody is in bed—but the only ones within his means are tiny studio apartments. They’re hardly fit for a twenty-something year old, let alone an eight month old baby. And so, he keeps his search quiet.  

With a quick hello, Aiko sets her purse down and approaches where Tetsurou stands. As they had when she entered, her heels continue to make her presence known.

“I think she needs a bath today,” she says in lieu of a hello, reaching her arms out towards their daughter; bathing is one of the few tasks they do together. Mainly, they delegate her care.

Tetsurou takes care of her in the mornings, naturally, when Aiko is at school. In the evenings, Aiko is generally the one to play with her and dress her in pajamas. They strike a balance, even if Tetsurou is naturally around to spend more time with their daughter.

But, they both bathe her, because Aiko’s spare bathroom is more than big enough for three of them, and with the amount that the infant tends to splash, it’s more of a two-person job, anyway.

“She does,” he agrees. “She had to be taken out early today, a fever.”

Brows knitted together, Aiko presses a hand to their daughter’s forehead. Unphased, Eri just reaches for the pendant necklace that dangles from her neck.

“She doesn’t feel very warm. Did you stay with her?”

“Kozume watched her. She had a good nap when she was there, I think.”

Aiko is… she’s pleasant and polite, of course, the daughter of two wildly successful people. She obviously cares for their daughter, and even if Tetsurou had been romantically involved with her, it can be, at times, incredibly difficult to understand her personality.

She seems stiff, almost tense. Perhaps it had been a long day for her at school; it’s not a far stretch. She hasn’t met Kenma more than in passing, but Tetsurou can’t possibly imagine she has an issue with Tetsurou allowing him to watch Eri. Or, the most likely option, he’s reading too far into it, and it’s simply her personality.

He tries hard not to dwell on it.

* * *

 

“You’d rather be with Kozume, wouldn’t you?” When Aiko poses the question, her lips are pursed and she wrings at the satin fabric of the shirt which she wore to work with her nails, painted peach.

“I didn’t ever ask him.” Their baby is perched in Tetsurou’s lap, wrapped in a fluffy towel. Her hair, still wet, is spiked on top of her head, and she cranes her neck upwards to glance at her father. When he breathes in deep, he can smell lavender baby shampoo, sweet and soothing.

“But you’d like to?”

It’s a difficult question, and one Tetsurou isn’t quite prepared to answer. However, Aiko shows no intention of moving without an answer. Her apartment is comfortable and shows her affluence, but Tetsurou squirms still, uncomfortable, on the chaise.

“I don’t think he wants that,” he finally says, eyes trained on a notch in the wood floor. This conversation is surely an inapropriate one, given that he’s made a sincere effort not to entertain the idea—or, rather, not to get his hopes up at the idea—of living with Kenma.   

“But…” Aiko pauses, flattens her skirt, and sighs, “You’d like that, given the chance?”

“Given the chance,” Tetsurou says, hesitant. His chest aches and his heartstrings pull, but his outward posture is stiff. Chances are difficult and messy, and this chance, in particular, isn’t even a guarantee. Even if, for some unthinkable reason, Tetsurou  _ could  _ propose that he and Kenma live together, there’s no guarantee, no reasonable assumption, even, that Kenma would agree.

His chest aches harder still. When Aiko stands, seemingly satisfied with his admission, she takes their daughter down the hallway, presumably to change her.

Tetsurou’s head swims.

* * *

 

When Eri wakes in the middle of the night, Tetsurou is relieved, which is entirely new. In the four months of her life before she had started sleeping through the night, the thought of being up several times was dreadful, but on this particular night, he appreciates it, a chance to clear his head.

He silences the baby monitor, treading down the hallway to the room that had been quickly pieced together, certainly fit for a child her age. 

It had taken Tetsurou months to scrape enough together to give Eri a space of her own in his apartment, and even then, it had been little more than a crib in the corner of his bedroom. (She slept in his bed most nights, anyway). Aiko had put this together at the drop of a hat, and Tetsurou is sure it will stay long after they leave.

“Hi there,” he greets, quiet. “Hey, thought you were getting old to be waking up this late, huh?” And then, “Don’t worry, I’m not upset at you.”

The first thing that he notices is that she’s warm; despite it being June and summer and  _ hot _ , she’s dressed in a fleece pajama set. So, it’s really no wonder that she’s uncomfortable.

It hadn’t been true upset. She’s not sick beyond a small fever (and they’d given her infant cold medicine prior to bed, anyway), and she’s been recently changed. She’d eaten before bed, so it’s not hunger. Tetsurou isn’t shocked to see that she calms once he’s undressed her and taken her into the living room, where the air conditioner blows.

“You know,” he tells her, even though she probably isn’t listening and definitely can’t talk back, “I’ve always been kind of a night owl, too. I always believed that being awake this late gives you a lot of time to think.”

She blinks up at him, brown eyes wide and trusting, if not slightly overwhelming. She has this habit of looking at him as if he holds all the answers in the world—to her, he probably does. Tetsurou had actually teared up when he held her for the first time, taken aback with the idea that she was half his, genetically. And, over the past eight months, she’s grown from a newborn, helpless and sleeping away two thirds of each day, into a  _ baby _ , curious and on the go, babbling and always learning.

He’s learned with her. Learned how to put her needs before his, learned how to let a relationship grow and change, as painful as it may be. He’s learned what it means to be selfless; he still has so much unknown.

“Are you happy living here?” he asks. “Do you miss when it was just you and me?” Tetsurou isn’t sure that he’s happy living here, but he’s even less certain that he wants to be alone once more, just the two of them. 

She stills in his arms, then, bare skin pressed against his pajama shirt, and drifts into sleep, lulled by Tetsurou’s monologue.

“You’re a pretty good listener,” he mumbles, pressing a kiss to her forehead, “for someone who can’t talk back.” Affection swells in his chest, warm and golden and glowing, and he’s quick to follow her into sleep, too.

* * *

 

Tetsurou actually thinks to pack before making plans to meet Kenma at a park nearby to Aiko’s apartment, which is slightly unusual. Instead of showing up unprepared, he packs a blanket for them to sit on. He stuffs some of Eri’s toys into a backpack and stops at a deli on the way, since he’s sure Kenma hasn’t eaten lunch yet.

It’s understandably busy; it’s a Saturday, but they settle in the shade under a tree, fleece blanket spread on top of the gras. Tetsurou leans against the tree once they’ve settled, content. He basks in the breeze and the sunlight and warmth, at peace.

“She’s better today, isn’t she?”

“She is,” Tetsurou agrees. “When I woke her up this morning, she was fine, so it must have just been a quick bug.”

The park teems with activity; two girls walk in front of their blanket, hands clasped together and swinging. A couple across the path pushes their child on a swing, and the other three swings are full of children laughing and shouting at the top of their lungs.

However, even despite the activity around them, despite the crowds and the sticky heat, they’re in their own quiet world. Kenma peeks at him over sunglasses and the baby sits in between them, exploring Tetsurou’s open backpack. 

It’s calming, being just the three of them. Tetsurou, as much as he doesn’t want to, can’t help but to entertain the thought of being the three of them, always. The idea of coming home to Kenma, the idea of once more living together, sharing these easy domesticities with Kenma… it’s something Tetsurou wants desperately.

To their left, someone pushes a popsicle cart, and Tetsurou, unable to resist the lure of a cold treat, excuses himself.

“Stay with her, just for a few?” he asks, only departing when Kenma agrees.

In the interim between Tetsurou leaving and returning, a baby cries somewhere distantly and children continue to play, shouts traveling upwards until they dissipate into nothing. Bike bells ring and birds chirp, and Tetsurou feels so utterly and completely content.

So, when he turns to see a flushed Kenma and  _ his  _ baby responsible for the cries, he’s slightly taken aback, quickly making his way over to the pair.

“I—”

“Bee sting.” Kenma says, grimacing. “But, you have your hands full, so.”

It’s true; Tetsurou holds a popsicle in each, and while he wants more than anything to reach out and comfort Eri, the selfish (and smitten) part of him says,  _ let Kenma handle it _ . And, to his delight, Eri actually takes comfort in Kenma.

She’s so used to Tetsurou that it’s often difficult for others—Aiko, even sometimes—and yet she takes to Kenma easily, even if he’s slightly stiff holding her. It’s clear that as an only child, and, at that, one who had had minimal interaction with young children, he doesn’t quite know how to handle them, but Tetsurou is still awed at the fact that he can comfort her.

And, after some time, her cries quiet into nothing, and they readjust with their (quickly melting) popsicles. Kenma is slow, taking his time with his so that it drips and his lips slowly take on a blue tint. Fleetingly, Tetsurou realizes that if they were to kiss, he would taste like blue raspberry. Not so fleetingly, he chastises himself for thinking so, for entertaining such thoughts.

He doesn’t dwell for too long, intrigued with the way that Kenma quiets, and looks somehow far away, deep in thought. Maybe it’s nothing, maybe he’s thinking about school or work, or maybe he’s— _ probably _ —he’s thinking of video games. Tetsurou doesn’t prod, doesn’t ask, but does give him a curious gaze, distracted if only for a moment.

They remain under the tree until dusk settles over Tokyo, sky rosy and wind coming in gusts, prompting them to head for Kenma’s train station.

It’s still early summer, and so Tetsurou is slightly chilly on the walk back home, goosebumps prickling over his biceps. On the contrary, his heart grows warm, bright, golden.

* * *

 

“I’m going to bring it up one of these days, Sawamura. I really am.”

“I can only wish you,” Sawamura pauses, shuffling. He says something incoherent, far away from the receiver, and then, “Sorry, cats. Anyway, I wish you— _ off the counter _ —only luck.”

“The worst that can happen is that he says no. In which case, I‘ll just change my name and move to America, never to be heard from again. It’s simple, really.”  

“Something like that,” Sawamura says, dubious.

“Something like that,” Tetsurou echoes.

* * *

 

It’s a Tuesday when Tetsurou decides that he’s mustered up the courage—and money—to approach Kenma with the idea of moving back in together. Nothing in particular prompts him; Aiko is pleasant, as usual. In fact, the three of them are having a perfectly normal evening. The baby plays in front of the fireplace, Aiko taps away on her laptop, a half-full wine glass on the end table beside her, and Tetsurou balances his phone in one hand, feeling the weight as he lets it fall into one of his palms, and then the other.

“Aiko?” he asks suddenly, breaking the relative quiet. “Do you mind keeping an eye on her? I need to grab something from her room.”

It’s a simple lie, really, but Tetsurou needs to act before he loses all courage. It’s an idea he’s been playing with since he lost his apartment, and it’s been nearly three weeks since his phone call to Sawamura. Of course, of  _ course _ , it’s nerve wracking to approach the subject. Of course, his stomach twists into knots as he dials the familiar phone number.

It rings once.

Normally, he’d give a courtesy text prior, but thought and rationale escape him, apparently.  

It rings once more. When it begins to ring a third time, Tetsurou almost hangs up. He presses the phone into the mattress, quieting it.

When he picks it back up, knuckles white, Kenma is speaking— “you really need to stop giving her your phone, be—”

Tetsurou interrupts, “I didn’t give her my phone. I just…wanted to talk to you about something. Ask you something, I mean.” 

His heart thunders in his chest, the loudest sound in his apartment. Tetsurou is all too aware of the rhythm, and of the way his blood courses through his veins.

“I was just—I think that maybe. Uh.”

“Did you get in trouble,” Kenma deadpans. “Because if you did, I’m not helping you out.”

“No, no need,” Tetsurou assures, nervous laughter bubbling up and out of his chest. “I just. Uh.” He tries desperately to construct an intelligent sentence, but comes up with nothing; this isn’t the type of question to script, not really, but Tetsurou certainly tries.

“Can we get coffee tomorrow?” he babbles. “I just…Hear Aiko, and I need to make sure the baby is okay, and I think she’s working on law stuff, so I—”

“You’re nervous, Kuro,” Kenma observes, which  _ yes _ , yes Tetsurou is nervous. Kenma’s detective skills are wonderful, apparently. “Just let me know about tomorrow, okay?”

“Yes, I will. Okay. Sure,” Tetsurou says. Does he sound idiotic? Of course. He can’t control his words, can’t form a coherent thought, even.

But, he’s bought himself another full day to dwell on it, just a fraction of all the days and weeks he’s been thinking about asking Kenma.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he finally says.

“Tomorrow, yes.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	8. pâro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> n. the feeling that no matter what you do is always somehow wrong—that any attempt to make your way comfortably through the world will only end up crossing some invisible taboo—as if there’s some obvious way forward that everybody else can see but you, each of them leaning back in their chair and calling out helpfully, colder, colder, colder.

Despite the fact that she cannot speak except in babbles and two-syllable words, Tetsurou finds himself confiding in his daughter a  _ lot _ , maybe because she doesn’t speak back and doesn’t spill his thoughts to the world, or maybe because he spends so much of his time with her.

She’s a good listener, for a nine month old. She grows impatient and wants to play, but as long as Tetsurou keeps her entertained and excited, he can spill his heart to her. He isn’t so much spilling his heart as he is aimlessly chattering to her on this particular morning, though.

His words are lost in the ambient noise of the coffee shop that they wait in, two mugs and one bottle on the wooden table in front of them; Tetsurou had had both the baby and himself ready even before Aiko had woken up, left for the train thirty minutes early _ , and  _ killed time in a nearby children’s store. He’d ordered coffees for both himself and Kenma, received them, and gotten settled in the booth five minutes before they’d even agreed to meet.

What he's going to ask of Kenma is a monumental proposition, and Tetsurou cannot negate that fact whatsoever. Even just proposing that he and Kenma live together, sans the baby, is monumental. When she is involved, the situation only further complicates.

Of course Tetsurou loves her. Of course, even if Kenma isn’t willing, he will make it work. He’ll find an apartment that, while tiny, is hopefully no tinier than his old apartment, and they’ll clutter it with old volleyball shoes, movies, and baby toys, and they’ll be  _ fine _ , just like they were when she was a newborn and he was clueless.

But, if Kenma agrees, if Kenma  _ does  _ want to live together once more, then Tetsurou’s movies and games, and Eri’s baby things will mingle with  _ Kenma _ ’s belongings, and they’ll live above a video game store in an apartment with two bedrooms, a cat, and a shower that doesn’t leak, and there will be  _ three  _ of them, and even if things aren’t perfect, they will be so, so okay.

So, the decision and the outcome are absolutely massive. Tetsurou tells his daughter this. Unconcerned, she lifts a blue plastic ring to her mouth, a string of drool snapping and collecting on the high chair in front of her.

Kenma isn’t there one second, and the next he slides into the booth, wrapping his hands around the still-steaming mug of coffee and inhaling as if it’s his lifeline, probably because it is.

“Hi,” Tetsurou greets. “Morning, I’m really glad you made it okay.”

A nod suffices on Kenma’s part because his face is still hidden behind the large white mug, but he slumps against the booth, so utterly relaxed. Or, maybe he’s exhausted—Tetsurou can’t quite tell. 

The café buzzes with activity around the trio, but they’re still in their own little universe, quiet and still on the cusp between awake and asleep; the baby is lively, at least.

Kenma blinks and then sets his mug down, curling the sleeves of his sweatshirt around his hands.  _ Cute _ , Tetsurou wants to remark but refrains, instead fixing his gaze slightly to the left, on his daughter.

“Did you still want to talk?” asks Kenma, apparently suddenly remembering that there is a legitimate reason for the three of them to have met up so early in the morning–probably just because Tetsurou couldn’t take waiting all afternoon, and because if he had waited much longer, he certainly would have lost his nerve.

“Of course,” Tetsurou says with a forced cough hidden behind his elbow. This proposition, that they live together, is not anything he could have (or  _ should  _ have) prepared for. This question isn’t one to script, nor is it one that comes easily. “Of course I do.”

It’s probably best–not necessarily wise, per se, but easiest–for Tetsurou to allow himself to just speak freely, as if his subconscious is on autopilot. That’s all this is: a stream of consciousness, like the exercise that his English teachers used to have him practice in high school. He just needs to speak, which, at the moment, is proving to be much more difficult than anticipated.

“I don’t think I want to stay with Aiko very much longer,” he begins, and explains his rationale: the feelings of intrusion, the way it is both stark and very much  _ not  _ baby-proofed, and the sheer discomfort of the awkward formalities that are their everyday interactions. And, from there on, Tetsurou just  _ speaks _ , not entirely aware of exactly what is coming out of his mouth.

“…I know it might be a lot to ask…” a sigh on his part, a curious cock of the head on Kenma’s. “I think we could make it work. I  _ want _ to make it work, if you want to.”

To quell his anxiety and stop himself from nervously fidgeting, Tetsurou lifts Eri from her high chair and sets her on his lap, one hand wrapped around the whole of her torso. He’s still amazed at how tiny she is, even for her age.

“I’m not asking you to decide today, and I don’t expect you to. Of  _ course _ I wouldn’t expect that. Just, there’s nobody else I’d want to live with. There’s nobody else I’d feel comfortable having around her all the time. It’s just…you.”

Kenma is remarkably unreadable. His eyes flicker up to Tetsurou’s and he lifts the mug to his lips, blinking.

“I’m not sure,” he finally admits, both hands still wrapped around the steaming beverage. “I don’t want it to be bad for… you. Or for me.”

Part of Tetsurou wants to coax, wants to say with complete certainty that it won’t be bad, but the larger part of him doesn’t want to push Kenma, so he sinks back against the booth.

“We did well when we lived together before,” he states, back of his mind filled with fond memories. Of course, they had been 18 and 19 and it had only been for a year—and Tetsurou hadn’t had a  _ child _ , but they were good roommates; they always made rent on time, had a chore list, and kept their apartment reasonably clean.

“It was a little bit different, back then,” Kenma says, bottom lip caught between his teeth. “It’s not a certain  _ no _ , Kuro.”

“Right.”

Kenma sets his drink down just as the baby begins to fuss, squirming around to try and face Tetsurou. She’s nine months old as of three days ago, and while some of the milestones are fun—the babbling, attempts at walking and standing, and consistent sleeping through the night—others, namely the tantrums and the anxiety around strangers are not nearly as exciting.

“I’m gonna,” Tetsurou hesitates and then stands from the table, whining baby in tow. “I’ll be back.”

“Take your time.”

Being alone with his daughter, getting a breath of fresh air from the outdoors, it all gives Tetsurou a moment to think and process his interactions with Kenma thus far. His friend hadn’t given a  _ no _ , which is much further than he’d ever expected to get, so he can’t really be disappointed.

They’d do fine living together, certainly; they’d slip back into routine, like they had two years ago. They’d eat breakfast together and their belongings would mingle together. Beside Kenma’s games would come baby toys and Tetsurou’s knick knacks. Instead of Kenma using the second room as storage, there would be a  _ bed _ .

Tetsurou is getting ahead of himself. He knows this. It isn’t even a yes, but for the time being, the baby has calmed enough for him to head back inside without getting disapproving glares from onlookers. When he walks, it’s almost as if he’s floating on air.

“I can’t commit to it,” Kenma tells him when Tetsurou has settled in the booth and given Eri a bottle. His heart sinks, and though he understands, it still stings, aches.

“But—”

Tetsurou perks up once more, almost like a cartoon, and stares forward, hanging on every syllable.

“ _ But _ ,” Kenma says, pressing a fingertip to his cheek. “I would be willing to try it. Before we make a decision.”

The largest, absolutely largest part of Tetsurou wants to get up from the booth and cheer, shout “ _ I’d be willing to try it! _ ” from the rooftops for all of Japan and beyond to hear, but the smaller, responsible part of him remains calm. Or, as calm as he can be.

“For—a week, maybe?” Tetsurou wonders aloud. Beside him, because she apparently has some sympathy or general awareness of stress, Eri is quiet, leaning over the high chair tray.

Kenma hesitates, not making eye contact, but nods after a beat of silence. “A week could be good,” he agrees. “To see.”

“Just to see,” Tetsurou agrees, because he’s certainly not unobservant; he’d like this to be an easy decision, of course. He’d love for Kenma to be able to wholeheartedly say yes, yes, yes. He’d like for this to be a definite, but there’s still so much hanging above them, uncertain.

They’ve all, the three of them, grown massively in the last few months. They’ve all grown and matured, all learned to exist around one and other—some more than others, some in very new ways, but they’re  _ okay _ .

Tetsurou isn’t going to push, though, not in the slightest. Kenma’s comfort is an immense concern to him, and so, as they finish up their coffees (and one bottle) they go their separate ways.

Tetsurou, despite his best efforts to not get his hopes up, is on cloud nine.

* * *

 

Tetsurou agrees to come on a Tuesday, and he spends the Monday prior at Daichi and Sugawara’s shared apartment. It’s possibly the softest couch he’s ever slept on, and they’re  _ wonderful  _ hosts. They’re kind and welcoming, and they absolutely adore his baby.

She definitely takes her time in getting acquainted with her father’s friends, which is fine, because it gives them time to catch up—Tetsurou mainly talks about his job and about her, though Sugawara steals the show when he proudly shows off an engagement band. It’s not shocking, seeing as he and Daichi are high school sweethearts and stupidly, absurdly in love, but it’s incredibly exciting nonetheless. The chatter lasts long into the evening, until Eri has fallen asleep in Sugawara’s lap and Daichi can’t hold back his yawns any longer.

The hospitality continues well into the morning before Tetsurou heads out; he wakes to the scent of coffee wafting through into the living room and a sizzling pan, and stretches like it’s the best sleep he’s ever had, probably because it  _ is _ .

Some benevolent God must be smiling down on him somewhere, because everything is  _ wonderful _ ; Eri is already awake, but rather than crying or coming to him, she occupies herself with a toy from Tetsurou’s backpack, a brightly colored bear that Tetsurou’s sister brought her in the hospital, just the same day she was born.

“Sleep well?” he asks, stifling a yawn. Her hair sticks up in tufts as if somebody has rubbed a balloon against her head, and the yellow pajama set she wears rides up and over her stomach. She’s the poster child for restful sleep.

For a day that is so anticipated, so wanted, it feels normal. Tetsurou changes the baby, which is becoming increasingly difficult since she is so against staying still, and carries her into the kitchen, free palm pressed against one of his eyes.

He catches Sawamura off guard. Or, rather, Eri catches him off guard when she gives a lively and excited shriek in greeting, far too cheerful for such an early hour.

“Sorry for—” Tetsurou gestures weakly, grimacing when Sawamura turns to run his hand under cold water. It’s light pink, and the pan full of eggs sits abandoned on the stove top. “She’s always louder than you’d expect.”

“Always louder than I remember,” Sawamura agrees, shaking his head. And then, he throws a mischievous glance over his shoulder and remarks, “More like you every time, too.”

“ _ Hey! _ ” Tetsurou interjects, and Eri, excited by the commotion, matches his tone with a squeal of her own.

Sawamura chuckles, “Hey, yourself,” and turns back to the stove, shaking his head. He’s always been kinder, perhaps, than he needs to be, but firm at the same time. So many of his qualities are ones that Tetsurou hopes he embodies, too.

They live far, relatively, and Tetsurou naturally drifted away from several of his high school friendships after his…  _ Situation  _ changed so drastically. Sawamura, and Sugawara too—they’ve always been incredible friends.

There are only a handful of people Tetsurou would say that he trusts his child around, and while they are two of them, Kenma’s name has always been at the top of his list. He is unlike Sawamura in that he is rarely overly warm and affectionate to Eri, but he is unlike anybody else in that their relationship, with all of its twists and turns, is Tetsurou’s most complicated.

He wouldn’t trade it for the world. Really.

It’s complicated, filled with  _ what-ifs  _ and  _ could have beens  _ and  _ once-were _ . It’s a companionship that Tetsurou has had for half of his life, and one that he has clung to in some of the darkest times of his life. Conversely, it is Kenma’s companionship that means the most to him.

And so, for as kind as Sawamura and Sugawara are, to make him and Eri breakfast and to drive them to the train station, Tetsurou’s confidence in Kenma—in  _ himself  _ and Kenma—only grows.

He arrives to the apartment eight minutes and twenty four seconds early, even though he isn’t counting—really, he isn’t counting—and paces outside for four of those until the nerves in his stomach are too intense for him to idly ignore.   

The reality is that Tetsurou is not remarkably suave or confident in the way that he had been perceived in high school, but uncertainty is still somewhat unfamiliar and unpleasant to him. His hand shakes as he presses the entry bell, even though it’s warm enough for both he and the baby to be dressed in short sleeves. 

It’s just Kenma. It’s just as if he’s coming to spend the night, except it’s not that at all. It’s monumental and might be life-altering and Tetsurou forgets how to breathe the moment that Kenma buzzes him in.

Familiarity in the back of his mind directs him up to the fourth floor, sixth door on the left, where Kenma resides.

He raps once, twice, and steps back, wrapping his free hand around Eri’s torso. Most of their belongings are still at Aiko’s apartment, but a backpack hangs heavy off of Tetsurou’s shoulders with the necessities: clothes, diapers, and toys, namely.

Tetsurou stands in the hallway for what feels like twenty years until he raises his hand to knock again, very nearly knocking on Kenma instead, who stands in the doorway in casual clothing, glasses, and his hair half-up.

Tetsurou sucks in a sharp breath and then coughs, probably because he has it so, so bad.

“Hi,” he says, stepping through the threshold. “You got up early.”

“We did agree on the morning,” Kenma deadpans.

“I suppose we did.”

_ I love him  _ is the first thought that comes to Tetsurou when the apartment door is closed.  _ This feels like home,  _ as he removes his shoes, is the second. He shakes his head, not surprised—but perhaps, slightly taken aback—by such thoughts.

For a home that belongs only to Kenma, Tetsurou is remarkably at ease. For a home that has only ever been Kenma’s, Tetsurou knows all the ins and outs, knows every square inch of the floorplan and the way Kenma has hs clothing organized. He knows the favorite video games for the way that their boxes are always moving around, and their lesser-enjoyed counterparts for the way that they collect dust on the shelves.

He’s probably seeing Kenma’s apartment in a whole new light, as somewhere that they could actually live, actually exist as the three of them. Of course, Kenma’s apartment is central to his life in the same way that his work or home is. Of  _ course  _ he feels at home.

If Eri behaves—if they all, the three of them, coexist peacefully for the next week, this place will become so much more than just a temporary fixture. Tetsurou can’t name anything he wants more than that. 

It’s slightly peculiar to see a baby—to see  _ his _ baby—crawling around Kenma’s apartment, but it mostly feels right. Mostly, it feels like their separate lives are becoming distinctly less separate. Tetsurou clears his throat.

“It’s not baby-proofed,” says Kenma from one of the island stools, resting his chin in his hand. “So, you’ll want to keep an eye on her.” He pauses, slides down from the stool, and adds, “Not that you  _ don’t  _ always keep an eye on her. But still.”

Tetsurou quirks an eyebrow. “Are  _ you  _ worrying about her, Kenma?”

Kenma laughs on a puff of air. “Not enough to baby proof. Enough to not want her to hurt herself.”

As such, the morning proceeds, Tetsurou effectively on cloud nine but not wanting to push his boundaries, Kenma nearby but cautions, and Eri oblivious. All in all, though, it passes without incident, which is all Tetsurou can hope for.

* * *

 

Tetsurou, even with picking up Eri and stopping for takeout on his way back from work, makes it home before Kenma does, which is unusual; in the three days since he’s arrived and in all the months before, Kenma’s workday tends to wrap up a few hours before his own.

In his (mostly) alone time, Tetsurou sets the baby down for a nap, tidies the living room, and tends to the baby after she wakes from her nap, well-rested and excitable.

He, being the opposite of well-rested, settles on the couch with Eri tucked against his arm—a feat, giving how much she wiggles in protest—and lets himself catch a few moments of much needed rest; it’s short lived, because Kenma’s keys jingle in the lock after just a few handful of moments, and Tetsurou would be a liar to say he doesn’t perk up, almost comically so, every time Kenma returns home.

_ Home _ . Where he and Kenma and the baby are staying. Together.  _ Under one roof _ . This might become a permanent fixture. If it  _ does  _ become a permanent fixture, will Tetsurou ever tire of seeing Kenma walk through the front door? Will it ever become any less exciting to see Kenma slowly, slowly but surely, warming up to his daughter? 

Kenma doesn’t even remove his jacket before slumping against the couch just beside Tetsurou, and Tetsurou’s heart aches with how easy this domesticity is, how normal it feels. Kenma smells of fresh air and the outdoors, and Tetsurou loves him  _ so  _ much.

“I got dinner,” he says. “On my way home from work.”

Kenma nods in response, quiet but grateful all the same. “I didn’t want to cook.”

“That makes two of us.” He pauses for a quick moment, and then presses his pointer finger to the tip of Eri’s nose. Bewildered, she stares up at him and wraps a hand around his finger. “You’ve got to pull your weight around here,” he chuckles. “ _ You  _ don’t have a job. You don’t cook dinner. I’m starting to think you’re just freeloading off of me.”

“She’s gonna have to chip in for rent,” Kenma adds, and Tetsurou’s heart jumps, actually  _ jumps  _ at the thought of them paying rent together.

“I’m feeling generous, so I’ll cover her portion.  That’s—if this winds up working out.”

Kenma sighs after a beat of silence, runs a hand through his hair to push it back, and then yawns.

“We’ll see,” he agrees.

Tetsurou prods, “Do you feel strongly one way or the other? About living with me?” And then, he revises: “About living with her?”

“I feel fine about living with you. Good, even,” Kenma says with a shrug. “But you get—wary of me around her, and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Tetsurou opens his mouth to speak and then closes it, focusing his stare on a pile of books on the coffee table. 

“So, that’s how I feel about living together, currently.” 

Tetsurou doesn’t reply, not immediately; processing what exactly Kenma means is tricky, and even after he mulls it over, Tetsurou can’t quite be certain.

“When you say I’m,” he pauses, readjusts when Eri begins to squirm, and then sets her down. He clears his throat. “That I’m  _ wary _ , what exactly do you mean by that?” In actuality, Kenma is probably the person he trusts most around Eri, despite his tendency to unease around children.

“You don’t seem to want me around her. Alone, at least. It’s okay; young children aren’t my expertise, but she’s a little different.”

Tetsurou wants to blurt  _ of course I want you around her! Of course I trust you _ , but he bites his tongue, barely.

“I am protective,” he admits instead. “But, if she’s going to be around anybody, I’d choose you over anybody else. Every time.” It’s absolute truth. His hands are still, splayed out on the pillow on his lap, clammy. Tetsurou can hear his heartbeat pounding in his skull. Beside him, Kenma seems...remarkably calm, still slouched over on the couch, no doubt exhausted from his workday.

“We’ll just—we’ll see,” Kenma repeats. “About living together.”

“We’ll see,” Tetsurou mirrors.

* * *

 

That evening, when Tetsurou has bathed Eri (she smells of Kenma’s shampoo, because her baby shampoo is still at Aiko’s) and dressed her in pajamas—blue and covered with little cartoon ghosts, even though it is June—Tetsurou lies in the spare bedroom beside his daughter, who clings to one of Kenma’s old stuffed animals.

He should be exhausted from work, and he is, but he is not smart and does not often practice self care, and as such, instead of sleeping, Tetsurou simply stares up at the ceiling, carefully replaying Kenma’s words in his head.

They’ll see about living together. They’d done it before, and it had worked out well for the both of them. As far as roommates go, for all the issues that one  _ could  _ have with roommates, theirs were minimal. Their situation had been incredible, probably the best year of Tetsurou’s life.

And really, they only  _ stopped  _ living together the month before Tetsurou’s daughter was born, when he was helpless and frightened and unsure how he could ever be somebody’s parent. Ultimately, his own fears drove him into his old apartment, and, apparently, into his current situation.

Would they be able to pick up how they’d left off? Will Kenma be able to be around Eri day in and day out, and be  _ fine _ ? Will there be a spark in the same way that there used to be? Will Kenma—and Tetsurou’s breath catches in his throat at this question, specifically—sleep in the same bed as Tetsurou in the same way that he used to? Will he want to live with Tetsurou after all?     

There are these questions and other still that course through Tetsurou’s head, swimming and swarming as he attempts to sleep. 

Tossing and turning is an understatement. He sleeps on his stomach, his back, his side. He flips his pillow to the cool side and back ten, countless times. Even the baby gets to sleep before he does. 

His sleep is not restful but still much needed, the only time Tetsurou has had that day for his head to be empty, completely and totally without thought. 


	9. avalanche

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had a really great time writing this chapter, and you can tell because it did not take me two months to update this time. i hope you enjoy!!

_One year earlier_

Tetsurou’s assumption had always been that the moment he saw his baby’s sonogram for the first time, he’d fall totally in love, attached to this child that is half his DNA, which...hadn’t necessarily happened.

The baby looked more like a blurry blob for the first several months, and while Tetsurou _had_ had a certain degree of attachment, it didn’t truly register with him that there was going to be a baby—a real, live, living, breathing, crying _baby_ —in a matter of months, until Aiko brought him an ultrasound image from three months before the due date.

He’s stared at the picture for what seems to be hours, awed and scared and overwhelmed and so, so alone. He’s carefully traced the outline of the baby’s profile with his ring finger because it is the gentlest, set it down, walked away, and picked it back up again.

He’s not ready to be a father. There’s no doubt about that. He’s far too irresponsible, far too selfish to parent a child. He’s barely going to be twenty by the time that the baby is born. He hasn’t even finished his college degree.

His and Kenma’s shared apartment sits just outside of the college campus that they both attend, which is where most of their time is spent; Tetsurou has a lecture that is presently taking place, but had called out sick a few hours earlier, unable to drag himself away from their apartment.

He’s going to have a baby in three months, and they don’t know almost anything about it. They don’t know the sex, haven’t agreed upon a name, and haven’t even decided who the baby is going to stay with, though Tetsurou assumes they’ll split.

It’s difficult to be expecting a child with somebody that you are not romantically involved with. It’s difficult to be so involved with somebody when a _somebody else_ is waiting back at home in their shared bed, when somebody else kisses him so well that everything feels right in the world.

It’s difficult. His situation is difficult and messy and scary, and Tetsurou doesn’t know _how_ he’s going to swing it.

“What’s that?”

Tetsurou hears Kenma before he sees him, and flinches slightly, running a thumb over the glossy image. It’s small, probably six inches by four, and he’s stared and stared and stared for so long that he doesn’t know how to view it any longer.

He holds the picture up and offers, “Aiko brought it today.”  Numb isn’t the right word for how he feels, but it’s close. His head swims. Tetsurou has made several mistakes in his life, and he doesn’t like to call this a _mistake_ , per se, but they certainly hadn’t meant for this to happen.

He says, “I don’t know how I’m going to be a dad,” and rakes a hand through his hair—it’s greasy. He needs to shower.

“You have a few months to figure that out.”

“I won’t have it down by then,” he assures. “I don’t know that I ever will.”

Kenma shrugs and admits, “Probably not, but you’re not one to quit.” He sets his shoes in the rack by the door beside Tetsurou’s volleyball sneakers, drapes his jacket on the coat rack, and settles beside Tetsurou, quiet and comforting. “Try not to think about it,” Kenma offers. “Just for tonight.”

Tetsurou insists, “It looks like a _baby_.”

Kenma can’t really understand. After all, he’s never been in this position. He’s never been so irresponsible. He’s never had to think this seriously about how to care for another human being, at least not on this level. He’s sympathetic, and he listens, but he has his limits.

“I missed you,” Kenma says instead, and rests a hand on Tetsurou’s shoulder.

“Your hand is cold.”

“They always are.” Kenma is mesmerizing; Tetsurou isn’t certain when his mind goes blank or when Kenma starts to kiss him, but when he does, it’s all Tetsurou can think of. His universe consists of Kenma’s mint chapstick, of quiet, rhythmic breathing, of Kenma’s hand on his chest, steadying and pushing the fabric of Tetsurou’s shirt up ever so slightly.

“You’re sensational,” Tetsurou says, because it’s true. “You are absolutely—” A kiss, and he pulls away, breaths quickening ”—Wonderful.”   

“You’re embarrassing,” Kenma teases. He still stays close, kisses Tetsurou, loves him like it’s his job, though. And, for a wonderful few hours, all that Tetsurou’s brain can process is _Kenma_.

* * *

 

There probably isn’t space in their bedroom for a crib, and since the second room, the one which was originally supposed to be Tetsurou’s, is used for storage, it isn’t going to fit there, either.

Slowly, as he can afford them, Tetsurou has stocked up on baby things: diapers, clothing, toys, and a high chair, currently half-put together in the middle of the kitchen. Negating the fact that he won’t need to _use_ a high chair for several months, being able to purchase one had suddenly made this real, tangible.

The baby is staying with him. It only makes sense, since Aiko is in college and doesn’t have the time to care for a newborn. Tetsurou, too, is in college, but his semester ends a month before the baby’s due date, and it’s already been decided that he’s going to take time off.

It’s still strange, slightly off-putting to see baby things in his and Kenma’s apartment. It’s strange to see baby clothes, all greys and yellows and whites, folded on top of the dresser, waiting to be put on a body ever so tiny.

He’s awed at the size of the clothing every time he does a load of tiny laundry. One, a red and white striped pajama set, size newborn, seems especially tiny; the fact that in a matter of months, a _real_ human being will wear that outfit, seems unreal.

This all seems unreal. He can’t imagine bringing home a baby to this apartment, even though it’s beginning to teem with baby things.

The baby—his baby—will they be good at sleeping, or will Tetsurou exist in a haze of exhaustion for the first several months? Will Kenma take to having a baby in the space, even if it is not his own?

Tetsurou can’t imagine so. It’s a thought that chokes him up, and one he tries hard to force to the back of his mind, ugly and festering, along with all of the other horrible, ugly thoughts. ( _You’re too irresponsible. You can’t care for a human being. You aren’t fit to be a father. Kenma won’t want you when you have this baby._ )  

Tetsurou really shouldn’t let his mind wander, and generally, he’s good at keeping it at bay, but in moments like this, when the apartment is silent and he is alone, truly alone, his thoughts tend to run rampant.

Squished up against Tetsurou’s side, Kenma is asleep, swimming in one of Tetsurou’s old volleyball jerseys. His breathing, quiet and deep, is a comforting presence. Their air conditioner whirs, and the couch squeaks under Tetsurou’s shifting weight.

“What are we gonna do,” he wonders aloud. His right arm is asleep under Kenma, tingling from his elbows to his fingertips, but he doesn’t dare move it. “How are you going to put up with this?” And then, his brow furrows. “ _Are_ you going to put up with this?” he asks on an exhale, almost silent.

Unknowing, Kenma continues to sleep beside him, peaceful and still and exhausted. If Tetsurou had any sense, he’d join him in having a nap, put his thoughts to rest if only for an hour or two.

However, if Tetsurou had any sense at all, he wouldn’t be in his current situation.

* * *

Tetsurou knows he’s going to move out about two weeks before he actually leaves, and the knowledge of that kills him with each passing day. He can only make so many excuses, can only ignore the questions for so much longer, before Kenma finds out.

“You don’t have very much set up,” Kenma points out one evening, voice muffled by the cup of tea in front of his mouth. “For your baby.”

Tetsurou laughs, though it’s more of a nervous chuckle than anything. “We’ve got another month, at least,” he insists. “I have time.”

“You’re not usually one to procrastinate.”

“This,” Tetsurou gestures, vague, “is much more overwhelming than school or volleyball, to be fair.” Lately, Tetsurou has noted that along with his pulling back from Kenma slightly, his best friend is more eager to spend time with him. Kenma isn’t _chatty_ by any means, but he’s getting closer to chatty the more that Tetsurou sinks back.

It’s probably easier to distance himself slightly before the baby arrives and before he leaves, so that he doesn’t hurt Kenma. It’s for the best. That’s what he keeps telling himself. it’s for the best. Kenma isn’t going to want him after the baby is born—probably doesn’t even want him now. He’s just too polite to say so.

* * *

 

It’s hard to stuff everything you own into boxes, hard to sift through memories and old belongings, and it’s _annoying_ and it’s tedious, and the living room has started to fill with cardboard boxes off towards the sides of the room.

Neither of them mention the boxes and neither of them mention the way that Tetsurou’s belongings have slowly been disappearing into boxes, bubble wrapped and packed and labeled.

It’s not bittersweet because it isn’t sweet at all. It sucks, absolutely and one hundred percent sucks. In the mornings, before work, he kisses Kenma slow and coaxing and insistent, and in the evenings, he kisses Kenma like he’s starved, probably because he is, and neither of them mention the obvious fact: Tetsurou will be gone in one week’s time.

Instead of mentioning this, instead of doing anything about this, Tetsurou and Kenma kiss and they lay in bed together and eat breakfast together, and love and love and love each other, because it’s all they can do.

So, one evening, after Tetsurou has packed up the remaining baby clothes, he springs up when he hears Kenma at the door, like the dog that he’d had for a week in high school used to do when he came home. He’s overjoyed to see him, exhausted and sore from packing.

“I missed you,” he says in lieu of a proper greeting, reaching out to take Kenma’s backpack from him and set it off to the side. “Good day at school?”

“Okay,” Kenma shrugs. His eyes follow the trail of scissors, markers, and cardboard boxes, and he takes his bottom lip between his front teeth; they’ve both been increasingly more fragile since Tetsurou had announced he’d found a new lease for himself and the baby.

“Kiss me?” Tetsurou asks, and dips down slightly, head cocked slightly to the right. He doesn’t quite wait for the answer because he might _die_ if he does.

It’s a languid, easy kiss, and Kenma’s hands each come up to press at Tetsurou’s chest. And then, all at once, Kenma pushes away with a quiet popping sound, face flushed red.

He shifts on his feet, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. “I don’t think—this is very smart,” he says, adam’s apple bobbing.

Tetsurou stands with his mouth hanging open; it probably looks dumb, which is fine. He _feels_ dumb. There was never any way this could last forever, no matter much he had ached and wanted for it. It was never going to be forever, but Kenma’s sudden refusal is shocking. And it _hurts_.

Does it hurt—does it hurt as bad as suddenly being told you’re going to be on your own? Does it hurt as bad as knowing that your relationship is going to grind to a screeching halt because your other half is going to have a child, when you are wildly uncomfortable around children? Does it hurt as bad as being kissed every morning and knowing there are only a handful left.

Tetsurou doesn’t know, but it _stings._ Instead of speaking, he simply nods and closes his mouth, dumbfounded.

“I’m sorry,” Kenma deadpans. He doesn’t meet Tetsurou’s eyes. Why won’t he meet Tetsurou’s eyes?

“Okay,” Tetsurou breathes. His nose stings with the promise of tears, sudden and unexpected. He’s _not_ going to cry in front of Kenma. He’s not going to.

“I’m going to shower,” Tetsurou says, and doesn’t wait for an answer as he disappears down the hallway.

* * *

 

The landlord had done a good job of showing the apartment to Tetsurou, but it is so, _so_ sad and echoing and empty, and Tetsurou aches for his and Kenma’s apartment. There are no shelves by the television here. There are no mismatched barstools. The floor is more scuffed. The windows aren’t as large. It doesn’t feel like home.

Being in a new space, a space all your own, is joyous for most, but Tetsurou feels absolutely sick to his stomach, lonesome and helpless and frightened all at once.

He doesn’t even begin to unpack that evening except for a blanket and a pillow to form a makeshift bed in the living room.

And, after all that, after opening six boxes to try and find the right one, Tetsurou doesn’t even sleep a wink that evening.

* * *

 

Tetsurou can say with absolute and total certainty that he has never been overwhelmed before, not in this way. No amount of stress or of unreality has even scraped the surface of this. After this, all of his past emotions seem so mundane.

It’s probably not possible to experience every emotion at once, but as Tetsurou catches the first glimpse of his child, he swears he can feel it _all_.

The baby is far tinier than he expected, tiny body hidden under a draped blanket, and cries, cries and rasps, and it’s probably the best sound he’s ever heard. His head swims, drowns. This is his _baby_ . It’s tiny and helpless and _his_.

His chest swells with pride and fear, and protectiveness, watching hawkeyed as a nurse swiftly removes the baby from Aiko’s chest, whisking them away to be cleaned up and measured.

“You had a _baby_ ,” he marvels aloud. This is probably the most disheveled he’s seen Aiko, forehead beaded with sweat and hair knotted in a bun atop her head, breaths ragged and quick and shallow. He feels nothing for her, even in such a vulnerable state, but _everything_ for their child.

He’s greeted with a nurse when he turns around, and a tiny, swaddled bundle in her arms.

“Congratulations—it’s a girl,” she says, and when Tetsurou cradles her on his own, he feels everything. Distracted and focused and awed and terrified, all at once.

She’s _so_ tiny, and when she cries, her eyes scrunch completely closed. Under the striped hat, she sports tufts of dark hair. _She’s so tiny_.

“Hi,” he breathes, trying to soak in every single detail, every mark and detail, every square inch of her.

She is so, so tiny. The nurses say five pounds, fourteen ounces. Even then, even holding her, examining her, Tetsurou can’t grasp her size, can’t grasp the sheer magnitude of this day.

He’s been overwhelmed and frightened and joyous before, but never, ever in this caliber. Nothing will ever compare.

Tetsurou’s legs do _not_ work, and he takes slow steps backwards until he bumps into a chair, sinking down and listening to the quiet hiss of deflating foam and faux leather. In his arms, the baby blinks and winces in the harsh lighting of the hospital room. She’s hardly kept her eyes open for more than a second or two. Tetsurou loves her so, so much.

Nothing, though, has ever been this bittersweet, and he can’t think of anything that _could_ be more bittersweet. This day is monumental; this baby is life changing, to say the least. She’s new beginnings, but she’s also unresolved endings, forced to come to a close earlier than they should have.

Namely, she feels like—she _is_ —the end of him and Kenma, of whatever they had or could have continued to have in the future, the end of their shared apartment, of good morning and good night kisses, of waking up to a warm, full bed, of partnership.

Of course, he and Kenma are friends. Of course. Best friends. But Tetsurou’s decision to still move out is not without hurt for both parties—it’s only natural.

His new lease started two weeks ago, a small one-bedroom apartment two subway stops from his and Kenma’s old apartment. (That still stings to say—their old apartment.), and for the time being since it's all still in boxes, they’ll all stay in Aiko’s apartment, which has a second bedroom for Tetsurou and a crib for their daughter.

He’s still shocked about that, about the fact that he has a daughter. (He’s shocked about the fact that he has a child at all, really.) The past few months seem abstract, blurry, messy. He had anticipated their child’s arrival, of course, but actually holding this tiny, whimpering human being—his own _daughter_ , half his DNA—adds an immeasurable amount of gravity to the situation.     

It’s entirely possible that he will never truly process the fact that she is his, either out of sheer anxiety or disbelief. Is it possible to exist in this haze, peaceful and terrified at once, forever? It must be.

He could stare at her for hours. He could hold her for hours, admiring every strand of hair, every mark on her body, every finger and toe. If Tetsurou had his way, he would never let her leave his arms, already more protective of her than he has ever been of anything in his life.

It’s simply because she, even though he has known her for all of ten minutes, is everything.

* * *

 

Having a newborn is difficult.

No, that’s an understatement. Tetsurou rephrases: having a newborn makes any other struggle he’s ever had seem so miniscule it’s almost laughable. Having a baby on his own, in his new apartment, surrounded by moving boxes, is even more difficult.

Babies Eri’s age, two weeks old, sleep for two-thirds of every day, but his has to be the exception here, which cries for two-thirds of the day and sleeps for the other third.

He loves her. He’s never loved anybody more, never loved anybody like this, but exhaustion cannot begin to scrape the surface of what Tetsurou feels. In Aiko’s apartment—Tetsurou hesitates to call it _easy_ , but it was remarkably easier than this. He’d had somebody to help, anyway, which was nice.

He’s on his own now, lonely and overwhelmed and exhausted, and so, he turned to the first person his mind could come up with: Kenma.

He hasn’t met the baby yet. Tetsurou invited him while they were still in the hospital, but his friend had politely declined, and since Tetsurou needed time to adjust—not to mention he wouldn’t want to invite anybody to Aiko’s apartment, especially with a newborn—they haven’t seen each other since the week before the baby was born; it’s been three weeks.

That’s the longest it’s been since Tetsurou started college, when Kenma was still in high school, and frankly, he hopes it never happens again. He’s happy, of course, on top of the exhaustion and anxiety, but he misses Kenma more than he knows how to describe.

“Would you not rather sleep?” he asks across the room when the baby rouses from her sleep once more. She is, and has been from day one, zero to one hundred in .3 seconds, which is about what it takes her to begin to cry—to wail, rather.    

Because she’s still so new and Tetsurou gets alarmed so easily, he rushes from the kitchen to the couch, where she lies swaddled in a yellow blanket, and scoops her up, grimacing. The walls here are paper thin, and if his neighbors didn’t hate him already, they must by now.

Time crawls in this apartment, a blur of sleep deprivation and making bottles and doing tiny laundry. Tetsurou hasn’t left in the six days they’ve been home, except once to take the trash out. This, in its entirety, is far more overwhelming and far more isolating than he could have ever planned for.

He’s sitting on the floor with the baby midway through a change when Kenma knocks and then enters, quiet in announcing his arrival as he removes his shoes by the door.

“In here,” Tetsurou calls, buttoning the yellow onesie over the baby’s chest. Freshly changed, swaddled, and in Tetsurou’s arms, she calms and lets her eyes flutter shut. Ever so carefully, with one hand under her and one on her chest, Tetsurou stands and offers a sheepish smile, unsure; after all, this is very new territory.

“I missed you,” he breathes. “ _God_ , I missed you.” Every part of him wants to step forward and throw his arms around Kenma, wants to kiss him until he can’t breathe, until he’s so dizzy and stupid and in love that he doesn’t know what is real and what isn’t.

Instead, he clears his throat.

“It’s really quiet at my apartment,” Kenma says with a dry, unconvincing puff of laughter. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“I wish I could say the same here.” One glance downward at the culprit of all the noise, though, and Tetsurou’s expression softens with all the fondness in the world. “She’s not even a month old, but she’s _loud_ . If I was even half this needy while we were—” he breaks off with an awkward fake cough; he can’t say _dating_ , because they never truly were, but it’s not as if they weren’t, either.

“Well, you get what I’m trying to say,” he says instead, shrugging. And then, “Mind if we sit? I’m exhausted.”

The couch, his bed, and a bassinet are among the only pieces of furniture that Tetsurou has had enough spare time to put together. This apartment is a shell of only the bare essentials, because Tetsurou hardly knows how to exist and care for a baby at the same time, let alone unpack and settle in. He’s still unconvinced it’s possible whatsoever.

As he sinks back into the couch cushions, shifting so that the baby lays with her head on his shoulder, Tetsurou sighs on a long exhale, raking his free hand through his hair.

“It’s weird—seeing you with a baby,” Kenma says. He sits cross-legged on the couch, watching intently while Tetsurou watches the baby intently.

“It’s weird _having_ a baby.”

“I’ll bet.” There’s an overt air of discomfort here—though, Tetsurou reasons, it’s probably unfair to call what Kenma feels discomfort, especially when he hasn’t asked his friend exactly what he’s feeling.

It’s entirely possible, entirely reasonable, that he feels bitter that what they had halted because of this. It’s entirely possible he’s upset with Tetsurou for leaving with such a poor explanation, or for the fact that rather than neatly severing their romantic ties, Tetsurou just left them to hang.

It’s possible, likely, even, that Kenma doesn’t know what to feel, because Tetsurou doesn’t either, and he’s not certain that he ever _will_ know what to feel. Perhaps in some alternate dimension where they had kissed for the first time and Tetsurou had not been told the following week that he was going to be a father, they’d be together romantically. Perhaps, in some alternate reality where it was Kenma and Tetsurou, rather than Kenma, Tetsurou, Tetsurou’s daughter, and Tetsurou’s daughter’s mother, in a reality where things were far less messier, this wouldn’t be so strained.

But, this is not an alternate reality, and it is messy, and the baby who was resting so peacefully just moments ago begins to stir, uncomfortable and upset.

“I’ll be a moment,” Tetsurou excuses himself, stalking off towards the fridge, where he knows a bottle sits, pre-made on the top shelf.

“I’m awfully lucky I have you, sunshine,” he says, whisper-quiet. The baby—his baby, unmoved, gives a quiet grunt as Tetsurou feeds her, leaning into the counter.

“I really, really am,” he reiterates, gaze fixated on all of her features; she’s his carbon copy, except so, so tiny, as if all his features have been scaled down.

Because he’ll probably just fall asleep if he stays still, Tetsurou returns back to the living room with the baby in his arm and the bottle in another hand, beside Kenma.

“I’m gonna use the bathroom, quick,” Kenma mumbles, excusing himself.

In his absence, which is all of two minutes but feels like a lifetime, it is just Tetsurou and his daughter, alone and yet together.

He can’t imagine it won’t be this way forever, just the two of them, even if that pains him.

“We’ll be okay,” he tells her, even though she’s starting to fall asleep. “You and me, Eri. We’re gonna be okay.”

 


	10. yearn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof. i apologize that this was not ten parts like it was supposed to be, but i couldn't possibly wrap it up in one chapter without quality suffering. so, here is chapter 10! there will be one more chapter and an epilogue, final answer.  
> thank you all for reading!!

Because Kenma is not one for drawn-out, emotionally charged conversations, Tetsurou does not breach the subject of officially moving in together even after it’s been a week—a successful week, he thinks, but one with  _ many  _ of the aforementioned conversations. And overwhelming Kenma is not on the list of things that Tetsurou doesn’t intend to do.

Kenma doesn’t bring it up, either, but he doesn’t ask Tetsurou to leave, so it’s probably fine; Tetsurou starts bringing Eri’s baby things from Aiko’s apartment after it’s been two weeks, half to see if Kenma will mention it, half because the baby is running out of clothes and Tetsurou, frankly, is tired of doing laundry.

But Kenma doesn’t ask, not even when Tetsurou sets up a high chair in the kitchen, and they exist in limbo—happy, mostly, but limbo all the same, Tetsurou uncertain of exactly where he stands, and whether or not he (and the baby) will be a permanent fixture.  

That is, Tetsurou is uncertain until a particular Tuesday evening.

The evening is nothing special, no deviance from a typical evening of theirs. They arrive home from work within twenty minutes of each other, exchanging pleasantries and stories as they share dinner (stir fry leftovers from the previous night).

It’s all usual. Tetsurou bathes the baby and changes her into pajamas, and Kenma settles on the middle couch cushion with a mug of coffee in one hand and a controller in the other, sighing along with the worn couch.

Tetsurou is on the floor with his legs outstretched in a V shape; his latest activity of choice has been fruitlessly attempting to teach Eri how to walk. He still maintains that she’ll have it down within the next month or two, because while she still struggles, unable to take a step, she’s a quick learner, always has been, and extremely clever. (He very well might be biased, though.) 

Arms outstretched, Tetsurou steadies Eri on her feet and then lets go, coaxing for only a moment until she stumbles onto the carpet, crawling towards him anyway.

“A valiant effort,” he tells her. “You’ll get the hang of it one of these days.”

The light projecting from the television screen changes from blue to red, and then to nothing as Kenma exits the game in a momentary fit of frustration at his loss. Instead of turning it back on, though, he twists so that he can lay across the length of the couch, facing Tetsurou’s back.

“I don’t think I’ve mentioned this,” he says, and Tetsurou glances over his shoulder at Kenma, one eyebrow arched in curiosity. “But rent is due this Friday, and I usually have the check in by Wednesday. So, we have to take care of that.”

“We?” Tetsurou asks, and very nearly—but doesn’t—drop the baby in his arms, out of pure surprise.

“If you’re going to live here—”

Tetsurou interjects, “ _ we _ ,” once more, too astonished to say anything else. A conversation like this is so, so typical of Kenma; he avoids all the fuss, even about large decisions such as living together. He’s never been the type to make a big deal, so Tetsurou doesn’t know what he expected, exactly.

Not this. But, he’s not complaining. He’s the furthest thing from complaining, actually. He’s many things: awed, amazed, overwhelmed, overjoyed, pleasantly surprised. He’s all of this.

“I assumed you’d want to stay, given that you’ve started bringing her stuff over.”

“Of course,” Tetsurou breathes, useless brain finally, finally forming sentences. “Yes. Of course I want to stay.”

And, just like that, it’s settled. They’re going to live together, the three of them. They’re going to  _ continue  _ living together. Tetsurou doesn’t quite know how to breathe.

Since he can’t breathe, let alone form a coherent sentence, Tetsurou doesn’t try to; instead, he picks Eri up from where she sits on the floor and takes her down the hall to bed—it’s getting late, anyway.

“We’re gonna live here, you know,” he tells her as he changes her diaper. She’s unimpressed, or rather, she’s more focused on trying to roll away from him and across the bed than she is on what he’s saying. She doesn’t understand, anyway.

He buttons up her pajamas and holds her tight to his chest, breathing mellow, quiet.

“Kenma’s warming up to you,” he says, even though she doesn’t understand. Kenma is not, by any means, fully comfortable with Tetsurou’s daughter, and Tetsurou isn’t sure he’ll ever be, but he’s much more comfortable around her than he had been in the early months of her life, which has to count for something.

They—Tetsurou and Kenma, that is—are conceptually the same people they had been the day Tetsurou told Kenma that he was going to be a dad, but more than that, they are different.

Kenma, for one, is not nearly as closed off and uncomfortable with the baby, either in theory or in reality. Tetsurou’s own confidence in his ability to be a father has increased tenfold, even if he still finds himself doubtful at times.

And he and Kenma, the pair of them, they’re okay. Better than okay; they’re  _ living together _ , officially. Tetsurou will never tire of saying that.

It isn’t long before Eri is asleep in his arms, head lolled to the right and tiny body completely relaxed. (Tetsurou rarely struggles to get her to sleep). And, as he does every evening when he puts her to bed, he lingers for just a few moments, admiring, before he returns to Kenma.

Unlike when he’s moved into new apartments, this one is already lived in. There’s a stack of plates in the sink, a full rack of mugs, and a full refrigerator, which Tetsurou opens to retrieve a bottle of wine he’d picked up earlier in the day—not expensive, but more expensive than he’d typically buy.

Kenma is not the type to have wine glasses; due to their absolute paper-thin nature, they’d break in a second, and it’s not as if he drinks wine (or drinks at all) frequently enough to warrant them.

But, today is not normal, Tetsurou reasons, as he pours the wine into two mugs and then sticks it back in the fridge. Today calls for celebration. They’re living together in this apartment, the baby is asleep, and Tetsurou loves him so, so much.

He sets one of the mugs down beside Kenma and keeps the other for himself, settling in amongst the couch cushions. The couch is very well broken in, and he sinks back easily, yawning into the crook of his shoulder.

“You’re cheesy,” Kenma deadpans, though he doesn’t complain as he lifts the mug to his lips.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“More like a hallmark of your personality, Kuro.”

That’s fair; Tetsurou  _ does  _ have a tendency towards being cheesy, but Kenma has never minded this, and their personalities mesh better than most others. It’s a strange relationship—many don’t understand it, and even Tetsurou doesn’t, at times, but it’s  _ good  _ because it’s theirs.

They don’t speak much, since Kenma is still playing his video game and Tetsurou is busy rapid-fire texting Bokuto. (It’s an ongoing war they have. One day, he’s going to send so many he’ll freeze Bokuto’s phone. Or, that’s the intent. He hasn’t gotten there quite yet, but he’s close.)

Either way, time passes by. Shadows form and disappear like nothing, and the bottle of wine makes a reappearance as glasses are refilled—and consequently, as Tetsurou feels his face, neck, and then his chest warm up. He wants to say he isn’t sure if it’s due to the wine or due to how warm Kenma likes his—their—apartment, but that’s a lie, because it isn’t really either of those things. Of course, it’s Kenma.

“Kenma,” he says, because they don’t call alcohol  _ liquid courage  _ for no reason. He doesn’t wait for a response before he says, “I’m really glad I’m living with you now. I missed you a lot for the past year and a half, and I loved living together and I love  _ you _ .”

Sober Tetsurou would certainly have had the sense to derail that train of thought before he had even spoken, but sober Tetsurou is far too responsible, as well as nowhere to be found. Whatever.

Kenma doesn’t meet his eye, and doesn’t really do anything other than hum in reply, but Tetsurou isn’t  _ stupid _ . He notices the way Kenma stiffens slightly and then sets his game controller down on the pillow in his lap.

“It’s not the wine speaking,” Tetsurou says, and then, when Kenma laughs, he persists. “ _ Seriously _ . I love you, Kenma.”

Kenma opens his mouth to speak but takes a sip from his mug instead. “We can—talk about this tomorrow morning. When you’re less drunk.”

“Buzzed,” Tetsurou quickly corrects.

“Sure, Kuro.”

* * *

 

They don’t discuss it the next morning, because Eri is miserable, and they don’t discuss it that evening either, because she’s  _ still  _ miserable and everybody’s exhausted, but the next day is Saturday and Eri is slightly less miserable. So, Tetsurou and Kenma actually have time to themselves to talk.

Tetsurou gets her down for an afternoon nap and heads back out to the living room to look online for decorations for her first birthday party, which— _ what _ , is two months away. How he’s shopping for a first birthday party is beyond him. He swears he only just brought her home from the hospital last week, and yet, she’s a week away from ten months old, nearly a toddler, who says a handful of words and stands on her own and eats what he does for dinner.

It’ll be a small party; they’ll invite Tetsurou’s sister and her husband (who had only recently been married, as in, when Tetsurou was living with Aiko), Bokuto, Akaashi, Sugawara, Daichi, and Tsukishima, who will likely not come.

He won’t really feel the absence of his mom and dad, although it would have been nice to have them at their granddaughter’s first birthday, but since neither of them, except for Tetsurou’s father one time, have spoken to him since their last meeting, it isn’t going to happen.

It’s alright.

But, wistfulness aside, Tetsurou  _ does  _ wind up purchasing an outfit for Eri to wear on her first birthday before he closes his laptop.

“I’ll probably go to Aiko’s tomorrow, since I still have to pick up some stuff now that it’s  _ official _ ,” he says, half to Kenma and half to himself.  

“You love saying that it’s official,” Kenma observes over the quiet, melodic soundtrack of whatever game he’s playing on his DS.

“I like that it’s official,” he defends. “It’s nice.” With every sweeping glance over the apartment, Tetsurou realizes more and more that he isn’t going to have to leave. This apartment is his as much as it is Kenma’s. The large windows in the living room are his, too. In the bathroom, one of the shelves is his, one is Kenma’s, and one is for Eri. The video games—well, he doesn’t touch those because Kenma is protective. But still.

“You wouldn’t stop saying that last night. That it was official.”

Tetsurou flushes red, fidgeting with the end of a drawstring on his sweatshirt, and doesn’t dare look up; he recalls last night surprisingly well. He hadn’t been  _ drunk _ , necessarily; when Eri woke up, he was with it enough to comfort her, but inebriated enough to pour his heart out to Kenma. Okay, maybe he was drunk. Slightly. So sue him.

“It’s nice,” he repeats. “Even sober, I think it’s nice.”

Kenma keeps his stare trained forward on the blank television and tucks a piece of hair behind his ear. It’s almost as if neither of them know what to say. The air is heavy.

Tetsurou cannot break the silence. He absolutely, positively, cannot break the silence, and so he doesn’t. It’s not exactly uncomfortable so much as it is mildly tense, but Tetsurou can stand it. He can stand much worse.

He  _ has  _ stood much worse. He’s stood the deafening silence from Kenma the month after he’d found out he was going to be a father. He’s stood listening to all of Kenma’s worries about how their relationship would crumble when the baby arrives. He’s stood knowing that he’s hurt Kenma due to his vigilance with his daughter. Case in point, Tetsurou has stood worse. Mild discomfort is nothing.

“You’re almost as needy as your child when you’re drunk,” Kenma says, finally, a bit of comedic relief.

“I am  _ not _ .”

“You’re a human disaster,” Kenma deadpans. “You couldn’t stop saying that you loved me.”

“I  _ do  _ love you,” Tetsurou says without thinking, and then revises: “You’re my best friend.”

If Kenma hesitated before, he  _ definitely  _ hesitates now. His left hand, rested against his face, conceals any sign of blush or real emotion, and his right hand picks at a string off of one of their couch pillows. He’s almost completely still.

“I don’t want—” he says, and then shakes his head.

Tetsurou doesn’t prod. He, too, stays still, and wills the baby to stay asleep in the bedroom as so not to disturb this careful, fragile moment.

“No,” Kenma says. “I  _ can’t _ be romantically involved with you right now.” 

Tetsurou questions, “ _ Just  _ right now?” And then immediately stuffs his foot in his mouth, cheeks red at his apparent lack of a filter. He could melt into the carpet and disappear forever and he’d never mind. He’d never, ever mind.

“That isn’t what you’re supposed to focus on.”

“I know it isn’t.”

Kenma repeats, “I can’t,” and Tetsurou has to physically fight the urge to ask him to stop. Instead, he nods and then swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing, and pushes up from the floor, retreating down the hallway to the spare bedroom— _ his  _ bedroom.

As he does so, Tetsurou can hear Kenma’s video game coming to life once more.

* * *

 

Tetsurou sees his sister for the first time since her wedding one evening after work; she’d asked him out to dinner spur of the moment, texted him during the workday, and invited him to bring Eri, just the three of them.

So, after he picks Eri up from daycare, instead of heading to the train and back to Kenma, he gets in his sister’s car, mostly just excited to see her; it’s been about four months since the wedding, and they’ve both been caught up in their own lives.

Meiko, of course, has her new husband and her job as a kindergarten teacher, and Tetsurou has his baby and his new apartment and Kenma and his job. They’re busy, always have been, but it’s good to make time.

That’s how he finds himself across from her in the booth of an American-style burger joint, baby on his lap, and food in front of him.

Since Eri is now ten months old, officially, as of yesterday, she mostly eats the same food that Tetsurou and Kenma do, and she’s seemingly made a game of trying to grab fries off of his plate at every possible opportunity, exploding in laughter every time he catches her.

“She’s so grown up already,” Meiko comments almost wistfully from across the table. One  hand, the hand which dons her wedding band, is around her water cup, while the other rests below the table, out of sight.

“I never thought I’d be one of those parents,” Tetsurou prefaces, holding his available hand up. “But genuinely, she grew up overnight. I feel like she was born yesterday.”

“I can imagine,” Meiko agrees, lifting her drink to her mouth. Rather than sip, though, she simply chews on the straw, her plate mostly untouched. “Although, speaking of born yesterday—”

Tetsurou quirks an eyebrow. On his lap, Eri chews on a french fry, distracted enough to behave for the duration of the meal. It’s quite a relief.

“I wanted to tell you in person,” Meiko says; her vision is trained downwards to her lap, and Tetsurou already has a sneaking suspicion of where this is headed. Could he be wrong? Absolutely, but it’s doubtful.

“Iseri and I—we’re going to have a baby,” she says on one long exhale, and then looks up for a fleeting moment, timid but disposition so, so bright.

“ _ Now _ ?” He can’t help but ask, dubious but voiced still tinged with awe. “Well—you know what I mean.”

“Seven months from now!” she tells him, eyes wide. Suddenly, the untouched food makes sense. “Much sooner than expected, of course, but we’re having a  _ baby _ . Close in age to Eri, too.”

This is true; Eri turns one in two months’ time, so their children will be slightly under a year and a half apart in age. Tetsurou—doesn’t know what to say, exactly.

The contrast is already stark. Meiko cannot be described as anything other than enamored, bright-eyed and  _ thrilled _ . Of course, this baby seems to be unexpected, as they’re only a handful of months into their marriage, but they’re good: financially stable, have two spare bedrooms, married. All things Tetsurou hadn’t been.

Conversely, the day he found out he was going to be a father, he was in Bokuto’s dorm room nursing a behemoth of a hangover, certainly  _ not  _ financially stable, and without an apartment of his own, with only a matter of months to get himself together.

He hadn’t told his own parents until five and a half months in, and hadn’t told  _ anybody  _ until four months in, when it became too difficult to hide—Meiko included. Joyous had been the farthest from his emotional state, but Meiko is thrilled.

“You’re going to have a  _ baby _ ,” he states, shocked and awed and situationally envious. Of course, he voices none of this, even though a large part of him wants to be bitter that their parents will no doubt involve themselves with this grandchild of theirs.

“You’re the first to know. Besides Iseri, of course.”

“You’re going to have one lucky child,” he says, absolutely truthful. Envy aside, Meiko and Iseri will make wonderful parents. At their relatively young ages, they’ll be wonderful parents, but with the added stability that Tetsurou hadn’t been able to provide until only recently. This child, unlike his own, will not live in four apartments before they turn even a year old. Their parents are not struggling with money, and their extended family is sure to be supportive, all luxuries that Tetsurou had never had.

They don’t stay much longer, but they do discuss baby things (Tetsurou is still in awe.) Tetsurou, of course, is stricken with nostalgia at the familiarity of the situation, and suddenly, the child in his lap seems so grown, as if he’s holding somebody he’s known all his life. In a way, he doesn’t recall life before her. Maybe it’ll be the same for Meiko.

Tetsurou pays, because even if he isn’t swimming in money, he’s prideful, and Meiko is going to have so many expenses with a child on the way.

He hugs her goodbye a little tighter as they stand from the table, exchanging goodbyes and promises to meet before Eri’s birthday party, and if Tetsurou feels slightly guilty as he admires Eri’s sleeping face on the car ride home, nobody mentions it. 


	11. humble

It’s not surprising how easily Tetsurou, Kenma, and Eri fall into a routine. It’s not necessarily dissimilar to the routine Tetsurou and Kenma had during college, but instead of going to class, they go to work. Instead of staying up until the wee hours of the morning to study, Tetsurou stays up to take care of the baby. Instead of instant noodles and instant coffee, there’s a cupboard shelf for baby food and formula. All things considered, it isn't  _that_ different, and Tetsurou takes comfort in it. Along with his and Eri’s clothes, he folds Kenma’s. He and Kenma share shampoo, switching off who buys. Tetsurou makes dinner on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. They finally have a sense of normalcy.

Eri is newly eleven months; she still doesn’t walk, but she’s growing closer by the day with Tetsurou’s encouragement. (And Kenma’s, too. Sometimes, on the best days, he’ll sit on the floor opposite Tetsurou and play along.)

She’s not particularly willing to walk to Tetsurou, but she’s fruitlessly attempted to walk towards Kenma for a reason that is beyond Tetsurou. Either way, it warms his heart, and Kenma has never said he minds, so there’s no reason for this to stop. It’s nice. They feel like a family—atypical, slightly strained, but they almost feel like a _family_.

It’s nights like these, nights where Eri goes to bed without a fight, nights where Kenma swaps his contacts for glasses and puts his video games to rest in favor of being with Tetsurou, that Tetsurou loves the most. They’ll never grow old. There’s no set routine to these nights, no favorite activity; they’ll order food, watch a movie, or—and Tetsurou loves this _so_ much—simply fall asleep together, comfortable and quiet until somebody inevitably wakes in the middle of the night.   

Today, Tetsurou asks, “A movie?” as he sinks into the couch, exhausted but comfortable.

“If you grab the remote.”

Tetsurou gives the room a sweeping gaze and then groans—the remote sits just across the room, conveniently out of arm’s reach.

“It’s so far, Kenma.” The remote taunts him from the pile of magazines it’s been set on. If Tetsurou reached with everything he had, he _might_ just maybe be able to grab it, but it’s likely more effort than it’s worth. He sighs.

“Well, I’m not going to grab it.

Silence, and then, “ _Fine_.” The couch creaks under the shifting weight as Tetsurou reaches out towards the stack of magazines in an exaggerated attempt to grab the remote, and holds it up victoriously.

“I’m a God,” he proclaims, bright grin and all.

“You’re the worst,” Kenma corrects with a half-smile of his own, and then sticks out his hand. “Remote?”

“I’m not picking the movie,” Tetsurou says, and then lies back against the couch—against Kenma, actually, He’s always been surprisingly soft to snuggle up to, and since he’s one of the few people Kenma will willingly get close to, he’d taken great advantage of that willingness.

So, he likes to be close to Kenma. That means nothing.

So, he gets a little lightheaded around Kenma. _So_ he feels as if he forgets to breathe sometimes. It means nothing.

Tetsurou sucks in a sharp breath, reaches for the blanket draped on the back of the couch, and drapes it over the two of them instead, close and content and tired. Kenma, apparently, cannot bear the thought of watching the nature documentary that’s currently on the television screen; he scrolls through the channels and Tetsurou scrolls through his phone until they’ve settled on getting pizza delivered and watching reruns of some comedy show they’ve never heard of.

It’s pleasant, mostly. Tetsurou is pretty sure of that. There’s a weird half-comfortable atmosphere. Tetsurou doesn’t quite lean his whole body weight against Kenma, and Kenma teases him for laughing at the (admittedly unfunny) comedy, until the pizza arrives.

Following a rock, paper, scissor match, and Tetsurou’s walk to the door, his tension eases up slightly. Rather than lean on Kenma, he sits up next to him—still in close proximity, but not directly touching—while they eat.

Limbo is the word that most often comes to mind when Tetsurou thinks of himself and Kenma as a pair. It’s certainly not unpleasant, not by a longshot, but mildly uncertain. Tetsurou errs on the side of caution, never wanting to be as presumptuous as he’d been when he left, never wanting to think _for_ Kenma.

“Are you happy?” he wonders aloud, before he can stop himself. The television is background noise, screen glowing blue and bright but somehow unobtrusive. Tetsurou’s vision isn’t focused on anything, anyway.

“Me?” Kenma sounds slightly taken aback, like his voice is somehow smaller than normal.

“There’s nobody else in this apartment,” Tetsurou chuckles before he remembers his daughter, asleep in the other room. “Nobody else in this room,” he revises. “Nobody else awake. At least, she better not be.”

Kenma shuffles, freeing the throw pillow that had rested between the two of them. He tosses it just across the room where it lands in front of the television with a soft thud against the hardwood. He shrugs before saying, “I don’t always feel the same emotion, but, I think so. Mostly.”

“What’s the rest?”

“Besides happy?”

Tetsurou nods, uncertain. Time in their living room slows and passes like molasses or honey, like the paper thin walls are a glass bottle. The pizza box on the coffee table is half empty.

“Confused,” Kenma says, though he sounds fairly certain of this. “Anxious? I don’t know.”

“It’s understandable,” Tetsurou says with a nod; he’d be shocked if Kenma didn’t feel these things. Of course, Tetsurou does too, but he feels with the added complication of having feelings for Kenma, and with the weight of the knowledge that he was the one who chose to leave all that time ago.

“I don’t regret that she was my first choice,” Tetsurou says, his voice unfamiliar even to himself. “She still is. I wish I had talked to you before I decided to leave.”

The voice inside of his head says, _you’re playing a dangerous game_ , but Tetsurou wills it away, unmoving. For as much attention as he is paying the outside world, it may as well be burning down.

“You thought it was a good decision,” Kenma says. “It wasn’t, but you thought that.”

Tetsurou, on a shaky exhale, says, “I _am_ sorry for leaving with little to no explanation. Impending fatherhood tends to do that to you—make you make rash decisions.”

“I wasn’t going to leave,” Kenma says. In his lap, his hands idly play with a pen—click, unclick, click, unclick. He’s always, for as long as Tetsurou as known him, had to have something to do with his hands. Whether that habit is innate or learned, Tetsurou isn’t certain, but it _is_ wildly endearing.

“You didn’t like children. I _knew_ you didn’t like children, and I never wanted to… Make you uncomfortable.” The apartment is somehow too echoey and closing in on him. He almost wishes that the baby would wake up and cry out to him so that he could slip away for a moment.

That’s the thing about necessary conversations: they are often (usually) uncomfortable, and nobody will bail you out of them.

Kenma nods and then shrugs. Tetsurou is almost certain he’s uneasy, but he makes no move to leave. Instead, he says, “You never asked me. I wasn’t going to leave.”

If Tetsurou has anything to do with the heaviness of Kenma’s tone, either real or imagined—and of _course_ he does—he’ll never forgive himself. The rash decision to up and leave your partner and your shared apartment is hurtful to say the least. It can’t be forgiven overnight.

“I didn’t go easily.”

“But you still went.”  

Tetsurou… He can’t respond to that. Does he deserve it? Absolutely. But he’s almost certainly incapable of forming an intelligent response, if he can form one at all.

“I’m going to check on Eri,” he says, and then, before Kenma even has a chance to respond, he disappears down the hallway.

As Tetsurou turns into the bedroom, it dawns on him that his attempts at silence are entirely useless, because his daughter is awake and standing in her crib, reaching out to him with one hand and gripping the crib rail with the other.

When she catches a glimpse of him, her expression lights up into a grin, exposing all of her front teeth, and Tetsurou melts, just absolutely melts and forgets any tension he’d been wrapped up in.

“I missed you,” he coos upon lifting her from her crib, and then wincing—she needs to be changed. “You’re my favorite break.”

She wiggles as he changes her on the bed, attempts to roll over and grab him, or the pillow, or one of her stuffed animals, but he manages to change her and button her pajamas all the same, smoothing the dark tufts of hair against her head until they lie flat.

When he returns, baby in tow, Kenma hasn’t moved from his position, even a hint of a centimeter. He’s as still as a statue, so much so that Tetsurou is worried he’ll frighten him when he approaches.

“She was awake, after all,” he says, settling Eri on his lap. It’s not terribly late—only about nine in the evening—but she’s wide awake, squirmy and chattering. It’s a welcome distraction.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Kenma tells him, vision still trained forward. If Tetsurou tries to follow it, he lands somewhere outside the window. “I think sometimes, it’s unavoidable.”

“I deserved to feel uncomfortable.” Tetsurou shrugs; discomfort pales in comparison to whatever Kenma had felt in the weeks and months after Tetsurou left. He deserves the discomfort and more, deserves to sit on this worn down couch with his red pajama-clad daughter on his lap and his old flame to his right. He deserves to squirm a little, and then some.

“I never stopped,” Tetsurou says, voice edged with want and bitterness all the same. “After I left. After she was born. I never stopped caring for you, and I certainly never stopped loving you.”

“You can’t say that,” Kenma says, voice slow and quiet and wobbly, on the precipice. Tetsurou wants to reach out and adjust the hair that falls over his forehead and glasses, obscuring his vision. He hasn’t gone for a haircut since they moved in together. “You said that to me when you found out, and you _left_.”

“Fear makes you do stupid things,” Tetsurou laughs. In a way, having Eri present makes things easier, gives him a way to occupy himself; he traces the lines in her palms, traces the shell of her ear, the curve of her cheek as she begins to fall asleep. He watches her chest rise and fall, and tries to match his own breathing to hers. Kenma doesn’t answer.

“It’s a bad excuse, but I had to love her before—before I could love you correctly.” Tetsurou is… nervous is not quite the right word—because Kenma tops the list of people he feels comfortable speaking to—but he’s antsy, certainly. If it weren’t for the baby in his lap, he’d certainly be pacing the length of their apartment. But, she’s there, so Tetsurou stays put.

“You’ve always been a good dad,” Kenma gives. His palms lie flat on the pillow in his lap. “You’ve always been a good friend. You’re _capable_ of being good romantically, but we need work.”

Before Tetsurou can answer, Kenma tacks on, “ _If_ that winds up happening. If.”

“If,” Tetsurou repeats, his voice far away and unfamiliar. As of a recent doctor’s appointment, Eri is only seventeen pounds, but she feels heavy in his arms. Tetsurou’s skin prickles with goosebumps.

 _If_ feels like a good enough place to leave off, just for the time being. Kenma seems to think so, too, because as his video game system powers up once more, their living room is lit up in blue glow. Tetsurou’s mind swims.

* * *

 

Christmastime is more fun in theory than it is in practice. Of course, this is a controversial statement, but Tetsurou has several points to back this up.

One: Putting up the Christmas tree is not enjoyable. With all of the weeks leading up to Christmas, the excitement surrounding decorating the Christmas tree is immeasurable, but the actual experience of decorating is miserable, tedious, and overall not fun—not to mention the pine needles all over the house.

Two: the cold weather is miserable, and even if it isn’t _that_ cold, in comparison to other countries, it’s cold for Tokyo, and Tetsurou is almost certain to come down with a cold. (Perhaps this has something to do with the flu he’d had on Christmas at ten years old, but he digresses.)

Tetsurou is not being overdramatic. He is not.

Three, and three is only recent—as in, the past year—but Christmas is regarded as a time to be with family, and since Tetsurou’s parents have all but forgotten him, it stings just a little bit extra. Of course, Eri is his family, and of _course_ there’s Meiko and her husband (and their baby, next year), but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Christmas is not as good as it is made out to be, although this year, with Kenma and the baby, it’s looking a little brighter.

Their Christmas is not perfect, but it’s theirs and it’s good, even if Christmas day isn’t for another week. Eri has been wearing almost exclusively red, white, and green clothing, and they have a (half-decorated) Christmas tree besides the television, courtesy of Kenma’s parents. Soft yellow string lights glow all along the perimeter of their living room, and there’s an ever-growing pile of gifts in Tetsurou’s closet.

Along with Christmastime, though, comes a break in Aiko’s schooling, meaning that Tetsurou has to hand off his daughter to her two or three days each week; Aiko will have her during the day for Christmas eve and the day following Christmas, and Tetsurou will have her for the night of Christmas eve and Christmas day.

The separation, while unpleasant and anxiety-inducing, has its upsides—namely alone time with Kenma. Tetsurou loves his daughter. Of course. There has never been any doubt about that (not since she was born, anyway), but certain activities are just better childless.

For instance, seeing the Christmas lights. Kenma, as indifferent as he may have acted, dug out a red sweater, and he certainly hadn’t complained about the hot drink Tetsurou bought for him earlier (not that it’s especially cold, but there’s an _ambiance_ that Tetsurou wants, and while he doesn’t have the time to explain it, it’s very important.)

They set out with one goal in mind: to see the Christmas lights, since so many businesses and homes seem to try and outdo one and other each year. It’s incredibly impressive, partially because Tetsurou can’t put up outside lights of his own, and partially because even if he did have a house, he’d never possess the patience to do so. Looking at the lights is just fine.

“Is all your shopping done?” Not that Kenma would need to buy video games for his loved ones, but seeing a store which displayed such games in the window piqued Tetsurou’s interest.

“Mostly, but not quite,” Kenma admits, shrugging. “I still need to get something for my dad, and for Eri.” He says this like it’s completely unremarkable, like it doesn’t force Tetsurou to stop in his tracks for a moment, just to process.

“You’re getting something for her?” Somewhere, in some alternate dimension— _his brain_?—Tetsurou fawns, clutching his hand over his heart. In reality, he sputters, “that’s so sweet. You don’t have to, of course, but—”

“Parenthood has made you a sap,” Kenma deadpans, but Tetsurou doesn’t miss the way that one corner of his mouth turns up, even just for a moment.

“It has not.”

“Whatever you say.”

The pair make a right turn, and they’re met with the most stunning arrangement of lights they’ve seen so far. Tetsurou blinks and blinks again in an attempt to take it all in, awestruck. Above their heads, visible in their peripheral but prettier if they crane their necks upwards, white lights gleam, strung between buildings. Each railing, each mailbox, even each tree trunk, is wrapped in spirals of string lights, twinkling and glimmering. The streetlights don’t even need to be on.

The street itself is fairly secluded, meaning there aren’t many others nearby. Tetsurou certainly appreciates this, certainly appreciates the alone time with Kenma. The past few weeks have been confusing to say the least, with emotional tension through the roof as Tetsurou attempts to make sense of their situation.

But, their situation is nice, all things considered; they’ve had a few more talks since the first, in which Kenma came as close to baring his soul as Kenma has probably _ever_ come. Since then, Tetsurou has made genuine attempts to keep such conversations shorter, probably to the benefit of all parties involved.

Tetsurou knows a few things: he loves Kenma, and he loves his daughter, and Kenma loves him and is—at least to a degree that he can be— comfortable around Eri. Tetsurou knows he would date Kenma once more in a heartbeat, and while he can’t say Kenma would date him in a heartbeat…

Well, he’ll just say it’s far more likely than it had been six months ago, or three, or even a month ago. It’s also not as if Tetsurou won’t survive if they don’t date, and it’s not as if Kenma is totally comfortable with the whole dynamic, but leaps and bounds are happening, and that’s all Tetsurou ever wanted.

In his left pocket, he feels for his phone, fishes it out, and gives a quiet sigh upon seeing his phone background lit up; it’s a photo of Eri at four months old, toothless and grinning up at the camera from her crib. (For some time before they had all moved in together, it had been a photo of Eri and Kenma asleep on the couch around the same time, each with their mouth open. It’s still a photo that Tetsurou holds near and dear to his heart.)   

His mind flickers, flickers to the lights and then to Kenma, and then to Eri, and what exactly she’s doing. He could easily text Aiko, of course, but he then runs the risk of feeling burdensome, so he quickly shoves this thought down. Out of sight, out of mind.

She’s a good mom, even if Tetsurou has their daughter nine days out of ten. She’s not selfish, not by any means, and she surely has her _own_ Christmas traditions to celebrate with their daughter. Tetsurou is certain that her Christmas tree is pristine, that all the ornaments match, that she goes out to buy a new one each year.

Theirs is the same Kenma had as a child, with ornaments ranging from cheap red, gold, and green spheres from Lawson, to old ornaments from their childhoods, to reminders of their hobbies: a volleyball, several video games, and a salmon that Lev had given to Tetsurou as a parting gift during his third year. He never understood why, but it’s on their tree nonetheless.

Above their heads, the sky bleeds an inky purple, a stark contrast against the twinkling light. The cold nips against the tip of Tetsurou’s neck, the tips of his ears, and the tips of his fingers; it’s not bitterly cold, but the wind is intense. Even Kenma’s cheeks are a windburnt pink.

“Are you—” Tetsurou begins, voice quiet amongst the tapping of their shoes against cobblestone.

“Cold? Yes.”

Just a handful of meters in front of them, there’s a tiny cafe, modest amongst all of the other, larger buildings lining the street. Tetsurou isn’t particularly hungry or thirsty, since they’d eaten dinner at home and stopped for drinks in town, but they elect to stop in and buy a pastry so that they have an excuse to sit and warm themselves.

It’s mostly quiet in their tiny nook of the tiny cafe. There are only booths, so they slide in together and squeeze at the narrow table in front of them, pastry untouched.

“I’m glad we did this,” Tetsurou decides. And then, quieter, he admits, “It’s nice to not have to worry about the mischief my child is causing.”

A light chuckle, and Kenma nods, picking at the muffin rather than eating it. There are only three others besides the employees in the cafe, a couple and one girl, probably about their age. The outside word is little more than a speck in the back of Tetsurou’s mind.

 It’s not really a conscious decision, the way Tetsurou intertwines their fingers together, but his hand is cold and Kenma’s is too, icy palm rubbing against his own. Tetsurou will never tire of casual touches like this, no matter how cold their hands are.

And, if Kenma minds, he doesn’t say so. In fact, he leans into the touch, slightly pressed against Tetsurou’s shoulder. If there was any possible way to suspend this moment in time, Tetsurou would never hesitate to do so; they’re quiet but they’re _happy_ and feeling the Christmas spirit (about time, since the holiday is a mere four days away).

The cafe is beginning to fill out, patrons filtering in and out the glass doors. Bells chime with each entrance and exit, orders are called behind the counter, all mingling with the ambient noise of everybody else’s conversations. This is all background noise to Tetsurou. For what it’s worth, it may as well be nonexistent.

It’s not long after that they decide to call it a night; they both have work tomorrow, and Aiko is meant to bring the baby back by 8:30, in 45 minutes. There’s a train station not far from the little cafe—only about three blocks away—and they walk towards it with their fingers still loosely intertwined, comfortable all the same.

Tetsurou doesn’t speak, doesn’t disrupt the moment, but enjoys it and enjoys it _thoroughly_ . Kenma hasn’t quite reached the level of initiating gestures that hint at romance, but with the events of the last few weeks, with the long, tolling conversations, the domesticity, the routine of once more sharing a living space, Kenma has grown to become—comfortable, maybe?—with _Tetsurou’s_ slight attempts at romance, however poor.      

It’s for this reason that Tetsurou feels comfortable enough to rest an arm around his waist as they wait on the train platform, frozen breaths visible for a handful of inches in front of their faces.

Tetsurou can’t be certain that this train station exists in the same reality as everything else. For one, they’re all alone—as in, not one other living creature in sight. It’s poorly lit in an amber hue, dust particles from God knows where flittering underneath each lighting fixture, and a train lurches somewhere in the distance, while the schedule reads that another one isn’t due for five more minutes.  

Despite all of this, despite even the questionable-at-best ambiance of the train station, Tetsurou breathes a sigh of content as he leans against the back wall of the station, eyes fluttering closed for a moment.

Kenma doesn’t move from under his arm, and Tetsurou certainly isn’t going to. Instead, he gives a gentle squeeze of his hand, paying close attention to the way Kenma’s coat gives under the slight pressure.

“I had a really good time with you,” he says on an exhale, almost slumping against the wall. “it’s nice, being just you and me. _This_ is nice,” he adds with a vague wave of his available hand.

Is Kenma reading this situation in the same way as Tetsurou is? Does he pick up on the wistful, wanting, somewhat sappy undertone? (He must.) Is his pulse thunder in his ears, too? Like Tetsurou, do his palms clam up?

Tetsurou doesn’t ask, but he wonders, quietly.

“We can talk—” Kenma tries, hesitant. And then, decisively, “We can talk at home, if my thought process is correct.”

“It usually is,” Tetsurou gives, his voice carried away with the arrival of the train.

* * *

 

Talking it out does _not_ happen when they get home, because Aiko shows up with Eri before anybody has time to settle in, and Eri is the crankiest Tetsurou has seen her in some time, pink in the face and wailing his name.

Of course, it’s probably only separation anxiety, which makes enough sense given that Tetsurou is and has always been around her much more than Aiko, but that doesn’t mean that it pains him any less to see her cry, so rather than having a conversation with Kenma, he retreats down the hallway with the baby, still crying, and closes the bedroom door beside himself, cooing quietly under his breath.

In all likelihood, he was correct about it being separation anxiety; once she’s been in his arms for a few minutes, sniffling against his shirt, she calms enough to allow Tetsurou to change her into pajamas and get her ready for bed.

It’s a quick routine—change her clothes, give her a bottle, rock her to near sleep, set her down, and back away _slow_ —but Tetsurou can’t lie and say he’s not relieved when he slips out the door without being called out to. He’d go back in an instant, and he always has. Even if he _is is_ spoiling her, as all the articles he’s read have suggested, he’d still go back.

But, she doesn’t, and he slinks back down the hallway, tiptoeing on the hardwood as so not to wake her.

“She’s asleep,” he says to Kenma—or rather, to Kenma’s back—as he walks through the threshold and into the living room. He sighs; the night, as it would seem, is finally winding down, but how true _is_ that? Does Kenma still want to talk, now that they’re alone. tetsurou can’t imagine that he’s forgotten. After all, Tetsurou certainly has not.

He doesn’t ask; at least, he doesn’t ask right away. Instead, he slips past Kenma, who’s putting away the few gifts he had found in their evening out in town, and into the living room, which, with the lack of television or video games or baby giggles, is the quietest it’s ever been.

It’s exactly as they’d left it, not shockingly. Controllers sit abandoned on the coffee table, the throw blanket is strewn across the couch, and the area in front of the television is littered with Eri’s baby toys.

The way that their belongings had mingled after moving in together is something Tetsurou will never tire of. While Kenma is his best friend, their lives, as well as many of their interests, are wildly different. Some might say that their apartment is uncoordinated or too eclectic, but Tetsurou can’t think of anywhere he’d rather live.

Belatedly, Kenma hums in response to Tetsurou’s earlier statement, and asks “What was all the crying about?” over his shoulder. A plastic bag ruffles, and then there are footsteps, and he joins Tetsurou in the living room, sighing against the seatback of their worn in couch.

“She just missed me. I think it’s an age thing; she’s only had this issue in the past few months.”

“She _is_ with you more often than not,” Kenma gives. Tetsurou, rather than reply, lets his eyes close in content. His arm is slung over the back of the couch, hand splayed over Kenma’s shoulder so that if he rubs his thumb over it, he can feel bone jutting out ever so slightly.

Maybe it makes him a bad father that he's thinking of Tetsurou rather than the baby, when he's spent all day alongside Kenma, but it’d be almost impossible not to; they’d had an incredible day, just the two of them, and he’s right there, and they still have to talk, and Tetsurou’s mind is blurred with _Kenma_. Just Kenma.

It’s easier to breach the subject head-on than it is to skirt around it, and they’ve—well, Tetsurou has, at least—spent months skirting around it. Doing so is going to do nobody any favors, so he simply doesn’t.

“Earlier,” he begins tentatively, thumb still rubbing back and forth in what he hopes is a comfortable touch. “At the train station, when you said you wanted to talk “ _if your thought process is correct_ ”, what—” He realizes, about halfway through, that he has no idea of how to finish the sentence; it dies on his lips.

“You’re not dumb,” Kenma chides in what Tetsurou is pretty certain is only a half-serious manner. “And I’m not oblivious.”

“You’re right.”

“It may be—easier, or more comfortable, if you take the lead on this,” Kenma says on a breathy laugh. He shuffles among the nest of blankets and pillows on the couch, shuffles slightly closer to Tetsurou, so that his spine is almost parallel with Tetsurou’s side. Tetsurou’s breath catches in his throat.

That is—not entirely unexpected, but difficult. This is not the kind of thing Tetsurou could script; even if he could, he _shouldn’t_. While not necessarily easier, it’s certainly better to speak from the heart. So he does; he tries, at the very least, even if his thoughts come out jumbled and slightly awkward. He tries.

“I made so many mistakes, and I understand that,” he begins, voice small and unfamiliar. Rather than focus his eyes on anything, on Kenma or anywhere in their living room, he lets out a quiet sigh that fades into the silence of their living room, and then lets it come back into focus. "But I'm not the person that I was before she was born, and I'm not the person I was when she was a newborn; I'm not even the same person I was three _months_ ago."

In most ways, this is true. Of course, at his core, he is the same, has the same bones, the same blood coursing through his veins, has the same heart and the same mind, but he's so different, so much more matured, so different than he was even then.

"You did," Kenma allows. "I did, too, in pushing you away. None of us are the same."

Tetsurou stresses, "I love you. I did then, and I do now."

"It's overwhelming—scary, even."

"That's the understatement of the century," Tetsurou chuckles. "But, I think that a lot of the best things are. Back in college, being with you was that; having a baby was that, too, but it's all worked out."

Kenma rakes a hand through his hair, and then the other, twists it atop his head, and then releases it. His fingers, in his lap, are intertwined as he cracks them. The hardwood underneath of them cracks, too.

"You can't leave again," Kenma tells him without meeting his gaze, without even looking in his direction, and Tetsurou cannot hide the way his shoulders slump, no matter how hard he tries.

"I'm not going to. I couldn't blame you for not believing me, but I'm not going anywhere," he assures. "I'm too content. I am absolutely, unconditionally, too content."

There are logistics to this that complicate things; namely, there is the baby. Kenma is nowhere in the realm of being able to be a father figure to him, but of course, Tetsurou doesn't exactly expect that.

 Kenma is infinitely more comfortable and capable around Eri than he had been three, six, nine, or eleven months ago, but he isn't a father figure to her, and the logistics of that are something that Tetsurou would rather not consider. Is he selfish for this? Perhaps.

"It's huge," Kenma says, as if Tetsurou does not already know this. "If we are—" he pauses with a swooping gesture, "As we used to be. That's huge, and it's not just two of us anymore."

"She loves you. I love you," Tetsurou assures. "I don't expect you to be even in the ballpark of how I am with her, but I think you already know that." In the back of his mind, some pesky, insistent voice says, _you're selfish,_ and, _think of the baby_. He blinks, slow and then again, and shifts so that he can face Kenma just a little bit more directly.

Cautious, quiet, low, Kenma drawls, "I love you, Kuro." He hesitates on a pregnant pause, and then, "I'm fonder of her than I am of almost anybody else under the age of eighteen."

There's something about this, about the slight lilt to his tone and the way that Tetsurou squeezes him that absolutely melts the tension in the living room. Tetsurou, along with it, slinks back against the seat cushion.  
"You mean that?" he asks, wide-eyed and awed, mouth ever so slightly ajar.

Kenma nods. "I'm... Hesitant to overstep, and hesitant with children generally, but she's yours and you're you and I do love you, despite it all. I do."

Tetsurou could kiss him just then, and he almost _does_ ; his free hand rests at the bottom of Kenma's neck and his other is still wrapped loosely around his waist, but in the moment that he leans forward, a tiny voice calls out down the hallway, no doubt afraid from waking alone.

He grimaces before pulling away with an apologetic expression, hesitantly removes his arm from around Kenma's waist, and pads down the hallway on socked feet, to where his daughter stands in her crib with one arm out of her pajamas. She reaches a chubby arm out to him, lips puffed in a pout, and Tetsurou softens immediately.

"Sunshine," he coos as he lifts her, "Your timing could not be worse."

Because she is eleven months old and generally unaware, she nuzzles against his chest with a quiet whimper, grabbing a fistful of his t-shirt.

He wrestles her back into her pajamas, but by the time he does so, she's wide awake and bright-eyed, so he carries her back out to the living room in defeat. When Kenma eyes the pair, he gives a shrug and settles on the floor in front of the couch rather than on the couch.

"She undressed herself, and by the time I redressed her, she was too awake to go back to sleep," he informs Kenma, sitting so that his legs are in a V shape around her.

She still has yet to walk, but she's _so_ close—as in, she can hold onto one of Tetsurou's fingers and take a step, or even a few steps, but she hasn't taken one on her own yet. It's almost a nightly thing in this apartment, unless somebody is too tired. Tetsurou and Kenma will sit opposite each other in an attempt to coax her into walking to them. Sometimes, she's bribed with cereal or toys, and others, nothing at all. Today, as Kenma slips off of the couch and settles his back against it, it's the latter.

"Today's the day; I feel it in my soul," Tetsurou says, steadying his daughter with a hand around her waist.

"You say that every day, and it's never been the day," Kenma deadpans.

"It's going to be the day," Tetsurou repeats, coaxing Eri forward. On her own, she manages to lift her right leg before stumbling; Kenma is quick to catch her, turn her the other way, and steady her on her feet.

The next few attempts are much the same, and as Tetsurou steadies her once more, he coaxes, "C'mon, go get Kenma," before letting go of her hands.

Eri, with her brows furrowed, glances back at him and then back to Kenma, buckles her knees, and then steadies herself once more.

Kenma is probably not even half as invested as Tetsurou is in this—after all, he has no relation to her—but he holds out his hand to her all the same with a close-lipped smile.

She's hesitant, to say the least, but takes one wobbly step forward, and then another before she trips over her own feet, falling against Kenma's waiting arms.

Kenma’s face is almost comical, eyes wide as he holds her in front of her. His expression shifts to puzzled, and then he holds her out to Tetsurou, who takes her eagerly and hugs her probably the tightest he’s ever hugged her, pulling away only to pepper the entirety of her face in kisses.

“I _told you_ !” He proclaims, holding her above his head, _Lion King_ style. “I told you she was going to walk today!”

Kenma, just across from him, shakes his head but says nothing as Tetsurou readies her to walk again.

* * *

 

Their first kiss—(can they even call it that, considering they’ve kissed before?)— is nothing like Tetsurou expected; it’s much, much better.

It isn’t the kiss itself, but the circumstances of the kiss that make it so sweet, something that Tetsurou will tuck away and savor for the rest of his life. It’s the casual intimacy of the whole situation that absolutely melts him, the lead-up, everything.

They’d all fallen asleep in the same bed; originally, Eri had been in the middle so that she wouldn’t roll away during the evening, but over the course of seven hours, it’d shifted so that Tetsurou was on the edge, and then Kenma, and _then_ Eri.

She’s an earlier riser than either of them have ever been, though she’s not really a morning person, and since Kenma’s room faces west, and has more windows, the morning light floods in, plentiful and waking her. Tetsurou can’t really blame her, but that certainly doesn’t stop him from complaining as he carries her into the kitchen and readies her a bottle.

It’s for nothing, though, because when he turns around, she’s fast asleep on her stomach, cheek pressed against the tile floor. He couldn’t have been away from her for more than two minutes, and she’s not generally one to fall asleep quite that quickly, but today seems to be the exception.

Gingerly, he sets the bottle down and picks up her limp body, carries her to his bedroom, and deposits her in the crib, door cracked behind him, and returns to the bedroom, where Kenma is groggily rubbing at his eyes with the palm of his hands.

“Couldn’t hang,” he chuckles, climbing back into bed, still warm from residual body heat; he pulls the duvet back over them, shifts to his side to face Kenma, and then sighs through his nose, absolutely content.

Sunlight now filters in through the blinds, slatted in stripes across the entirety of their bedroom, narrowly missing both of their eyes, but Tetsurou blinks as if it’s hitting his directly. His hand, which rests on Kenma’s shoulder, rubs gentle circles.

He’s hit with the nostalgia of this all too suddenly; in their old apartment, they’d had blue bedsheets instead of white, and the sun rose near their living room, but he’d held Kenma all the same, felt the warmth of another against him the exact same.

His hand travels upwards to rub at Kenma’s jawline, gentle as they ease into the morning, both of them wordless. If Tetsurou were to speak right now, his voice would still be thick with sleep, as would Kenma’s, so neither of them do for a moment.

Fleetingly, Tetsurou is aware of the fragility of this all, but Kenma is pleased enough; his eyes are shut but his mouth is the ghost of a smile upturned at one end, and his free hand—that is, the one not underneath of the pillow—rests just at Tetsurou’s hip.

“Is this okay,” Tetsurou breathes, not quite a question.

Kenma hums quiet under his breath, and then gives the slightest of nods, the pillowcase wrinkling underneath him.  

The kiss is, in its entirety, gentle and slow, and they ease into it like it hasn’t been over a year since their last, like the history that exists behind all of this is gone, just gone, like this is all so much simpler than it is.

It’s low and slow, and Tetsurou leads Kenma along, tugs gentle at his bottom lip before letting go and resting their foreheads together. He could never, not ever in his lifetime, dream of moving from this bed. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, his brain short-circuts, thinking of only _Kenma_. For the second time, the outside world ceases.

“Good _morning_ ,” he mumbles, words mingling against Kenma’s quiet breaths, and then leans in for another. The rest of their surroundings are simply background noise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so, so not ready for this verse to be over. one more update to go!


	12. home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy birthday kuroo!!! enjoy the final chapter... my humble offering.

_ Three years later _

 

Tuesdays are nothing short of sacred, because Tuesdays are the only mutual day that Kenma and Tetsurou get off of work; though they don’t exactly get to sleep in, courtesy of the ever-energized four year old occupant of the bedroom next to theirs, it’s far less frantic than the days in which they do work.

Speaking of four year olds, Tetsurou’s grew up overnight. This is a sentiment he often voices, but it hits him particularly hard at times—namely on birthdays and holidays. Today, though, nostalgia sucker punches him as he corralls her into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

“I can!” she insists, as she does about half the time, and reaches an expectant hand out for her toothbrush. And it’s absolutely true; she’s beyond capable of brushing teeth, but Tetsurou can vividly recall a time in which she was unable—or, even before that, a time in which she had  _ no  _ teeth. So, how his once-toothless, helpless infant is now an intelligent and free-willed four year old is beyond him.

“You can,” he agrees, with a patient smile. “But I’ll get it ready for you first, deal?”  

She’s reluctant, seeing how as of late she wants to do everything for herself, but all is forgotten in a few moments’ time, as she perches herself up to sit on the counter.

In terms of pajamas, she sports a  _ Pok _ _ é _ _ mon  _ shirt and blue striped pajama shorts, and her bedhead is the only Tetsurou has seen that even begins to rival his own. (On nights that Kenma is home early enough, which are rare, he braids her hair to keep this to a minimum, but nine times out of ten she wakes up as the textbook example of static electricity—Tetsurou's fault).

It’s endearing. She is, actually, incredibly endearing, and Tetsurou loves her more with each passing day. Four years old is probably his favorite age so far—and granted, he’s said that with every age, but he’ll take it any day over teething, the tantrums that come with being two, or the sudden spike in attitude at age three. 

Four is wonderful, and  _ she  _ is wonderful, more gentle than most children her age. Her laughter is among Tetsurou’s favorite sounds, and she’s mellow enough that Kenma absolutely, truly, does not mind her, which is no small feat.  To fault, though, she is groggy as Tetsurou prepares her breakfast. Down the hallway, the pipes squeak alive with warm water, and the bathroom door closes, a small far-away thud.

Eri sits on the counter besides Tetsurou and swings her legs against it  as he readies her breakfast, and then requests that he sits with her as he eats. Of course, it’s time he could spend getting ready, but one cock of the head and he’s putty in her hands. So, sue him.

Meals in general, but especially breakfast, are a drawn-out ordeal; Eri eats like a bird, and even then, the slowest bird that Tetsurou has ever known. She’s often distracted by their cats ( _ Plural, yes.  _ As of four months ago, as a birthday present for Eri, they’d adopted a second cat from the shelter), or by the neighbors above, or—

By Kenma, which is exactly what it is today. Tetsurou has coaxed her into finishing an impressive four bites of banana by the time that his boyfriend emerges from the hallway, dressed for the day and with hair tucked behind his ears; he’s even put his contacts in.

And, as for Eri, she absolutely lights up, exclaiming, “Kenma! Eat with us,  _ ple-ease _ !”

“I don’t think your dad’s eating,” Kenma points out on a breathy laugh, and then, a pointed gaze at Eri’s plate. “I don’t think you’re eating much either. If you take another bite, I’ll sit.”

“I’ve eaten,” Eri defends, through a mouthful of nearly whole banana, and since Kenma can’t say she’s lying, he slides into the seat across from her and besides Tetsurou. He yawns.

Neither of them are eating—half because most of breakfast time goes towards convincing Eri to eat, and half because they’ve decided to get breakfast after dropping her off at kindergarten.

How Tetsurou has a child old enough for kindergarten escapes him. She soaks up knowledge like a sponge and genuinely seems to enjoy going; the only downside is that she tends to have a difficult time with  _ other  _ children, either because she doesn’t have siblings of her own or because they’re too opposite of her generally docile personality.

She’s certainly not quiet as Tetsurou dresses her, quickly shooting down four outfits before they settle on a pair of overalls and a yellow short—even if she only agrees because Tetsurou tells her that the outfit is final.

“You’re gonna behave today, aren’t you?” Tetsurou asks as he kneels by the door, gently patting the space beside him as an invitation for her to sit and slip her shoes on.

The mischievous grin on her face is enough for Tetsurou to hold up a warning hand and give a cock of his head, and as if she’s looking for moral support, Eri throws an absolutely mournful look in Kenma’s direction, like she’s a wounded puppy.

“If your teacher says you behave, I’ll let you play  _ Pok _ _ é _ _ mon  _ later,” he promises as he crosses from the kitchen into the living room, where Eri’s backpack and coat are hung on hooks by the door.

“I behave,” she proclaims as she buttons her raincoat—still with some help. “Extra today, so we can play longer.”

“I’m not so sure that’s how—” Tetsurou begins, but he’s quickly interrupted by an affirmation from Kenma, and a delighted squeal from his daughter.

And, just like that, they’re out the door.

“You’re the reason she’s gonna hate me one day,” Tetsurou playfully accuses as he locks the door behind them. “You know that? I’m always the one that says  _ no _ , but you teach her  _ Pok _ _ é _ _ mon  _ and buy her candy and let her stay up past bedtime.”

“Past bedtime  _ once _ ,” Kenma defends. “She loves you plenty more, regardless.” 

Everything about Eri, from the way she bounces on her heels at the landing of each staircase, to the way she keeps peeking back over her shoulder at them, is excited energy. Their walks to kindergarten are few and far between; walks are rare as is, but walks with all three of them are relatively unheard of due to their work schedules, and her excitement is palpable each time that they  _ do  _ both walk her.

Even so, Tetsurou holds her hand as they walk down the sidewalk past the barber shop, and then past a pet shop and an art supply outlet, windowboxes of each business lined with flowers of varying species and color—all vibrant, all thriving in the warmth of May and the spring. They’re just at the tail end of the sakura trees flowering period, though there aren’t very many trees at all that line their street.

“Can we look at dogs?” Eri pleads as the pet shop is lost behind them.

“If you want to be late,” Tetsurou teases with an affectionate squeeze of his hand.

“I’ll be late!” she eagerly volunteers, attempting to tug him backwards towards the store, with its (admittedly hard to pass up) weeks-old puppies in the front window.

“Slow your roll, string bean,” he chuckles on an exhale, giving a gentle guiding tug. “We’ll check on the way home, how’s that?”

She seems unconvinced from the way that she drags her boot-clad feet against the sidewalk, but continues on with them nonetheless until they approach her school’s building.

“You promised to be good,” Kenma reminds her from a crouched position by the front door; he typically speaks to her in a manner that is much more grown up than most would address a four year old with, but in Tetsurou’s humble opinion, she’s certainly more mature than most four year olds that he’s known.

“I’ll be the  _ best _ ! And then we can play games forever!”

“Forever,” Kenma agrees as he slips one of the boots off of her feet. And then, quieter so that only Tetsurou can hear, he says: “Or until it’s dinnertime.”

This shared exchange goes right over Eri’s head, and in no time at all, she’s wrapping her arms around Tetsurou’s waist and then darting off to join her classmates and teacher, barely a glance back.

Since it’s May, and since she’s just four, Eri has only been in school for two months, but she’s doing much, much better than Tetsurou expected. He says so as the glass doors part to allow himself and Kenma to pass out onto the street.

She’s grown so much from the tiny newborn Tetsurou once knew, but she’s grown even from the frightened child she was just last month, clinging to Tetsurou’s leg and begging him not to go. It only makes sense—she hadn’t known many other children, except those that she’d met at the park and Tetsurou’s nephew, Hiro. Tetsurou was—and still is—undoubtedly her greatest comfort, but she  _ adores  _ Kenma.

So, the transition into kindergarten had been a rough one to say the least, filled with tearful, dramatic goodbyes and separation anxiety on both his part and hers. To see her go without hesitation brings Tetsurou more satisfaction than he knows how to voice.

Of course she has Aiko, but it had been Tetsurou that had raised her into this. He’d been the one to see all of her firsts: first word, first steps, first injury, and first day of school, just to name a few. And, of course, Kenma has grown in comfort with her immensely in the last three years, but he doesn’t really parent her.

“Are you hungry?” Tetsurou asks suddenly, his wandering train of thought suddenly interrupted by the heavenly wafting scent of coffee—an American-style diner to their right.

“Are you?” Kenma asks, though his mind seems already made up as he holds the door open for Tetsurou and then himself.

It’s quiet, seeing as it’s a Tuesday, and they settle quietly. across from one and other, Kenma in the booth and Tetsurou in the wooden chair.

“My sister’s coming to visit this weekend,” is what Tetsurou starts to say at the exact moment that  _ Kenma  _ starts to speak too, forehead wrinkled.

“I’ve been thinking—”

And then, there’s a pause, and Tetsurou blinks at him, overcome with every possible adjective related to fear, and slowly nods; their relationship is good, and they certainly don’t have any problems, but  _ I’ve been thinking  _ is not something most are excited to hear from their partners, let alone partners that they have this much history with.

“Go ahead,” he says, even though it practically pains him. The bold text of the menu in front of him fades into nothing, and he stares down at his open palms, flat on the table and facing upwards.

“Not until you relax,” Kenma chides, and Tetsurou almost has to laugh. In another situation, he might, but today he just glances up at Kenma with his head cocked.

“I’m relaxed,” he lies. “Please, go ahead.”

“I’ve been thinking,” his boyfriend continues, voice soft and low, just like Tetsurou loves. “Eri is four now, and she’s not—getting any calmer, not to mention that my cat and yours aren’t exactly friendly.”

So, this is how it’s going to end, or something like that. If Kenma wants to be together,  he doesn’t want to live together, because Eri is too much for him to handle—understandable, he’s never been overly fond of children, and even though he loves her, there must be a limit somehow—and because Tetsurou’s new cat is too territorial and Tetsurou is  _ too much  _ and Kenma doesn’t want to live with him any longer. 

“It’s really cramped—”

Of course he doesn’t want to live together anymore.

“And with our lease coming up—”

He’s not ready to say goodbye to their apartment, to the large windows and their impressive collection of plants. He doesn’t want to move into a new apartment, he doesn’t want to be away. Eri will be so, so confused.

“I just think it’s in our best interest, Kuro.”

Tetsurou blurts, “I don’t want to live separately from you.”  _ I don’t want to take you away from her, either _ , hangs unsaid in the air.

Kenma blinks at him once, twice, slow, like he has three heads—or like he definitely, absolutely misunderstood.

“The apartment is too small,” Kenma says slowly, and then shrugs. “I don’t—Just a bigger place should suffice.”

Tetsurou’s eyes widen almost comically, and the restaurant around him may as well not exist for all of the attention that he’s paying it. Kenma doesn’t want to be separate from him, Kenma doesn’t  _ want  _ to move out into separate apartments again.

“You just want a bigger place,” he says on a dizzying exhale.

“It’d be best for everybody.”

“Yes!” Tetsurou agrees a little too loudly, his head still residually spinning. He pitches his voice slightly lower, and then, “Of course, yes. We can—yeah, we’ll look for a bigger place. We’ll—”

Before Tetsurou’s speech can spiral too much, a waitress interrupts his revelation that his boyfriend is  _ not,  _ in fact, leaving him, or leaving their apartment, and that he wants a bigger space to grow into together. He doesn’t want to leave; it’s quite the opposite, actually.

“It’s probably about time,” Tetsurou agrees once they’re alone again. He smiles warm, across the table, and lets his hand rest atop Kenma’s. With each passing moment of this, of just the two of them, Tetsurou feels more and more at ease.

* * *

 

Moving days are filled with grand intentions that always seem to fall flat, and theirs is no exception. The apartment they’d chosen is three blocks from the last one and one bedroom larger, with room for an impressive  _ two  _ couches, and a little space for an office.

It’s a lot of space, but they’re barely able to load all of the boxes into it before nightfall takes over Tokyo, and before drowsiness takes over Tetsurou and Kenma.

The intentions, of course, had been far greater, but by the time that it’s eight in the evening, all they have set up is a couch and their bed. Perhaps, in hindsight, they should have set up Eri’s first; this isn’t the time for hindsight, though.

It’s this lack of hindsight that finds the double bed full of two exhausted adults and one exhausted child before the clock even has a chance to strike nine. Eri can’t sleep on the couch, because the living room is still full of boxes, and even if it  _ weren’t  _ full of boxes, all of the articles Tetsurou read prior to the move state that it’s a good idea to let your child sleep with you for a handful of nights to best acclimate them to a new place.

And, so, their once very large looking double bed is stuffed full to the brim. Eri, despite being tiny even for her age, takes up Tesurou’s side and then some, arms stretched above her; she’d been the first to fall asleep (which doesn’t exactly make sense, given that Tetsurou and Kenma had been moving and she’d just spent the day with Meiko, but Tetsurou digresses.)

Tetsurou and Kenma, as a result, are curled up close together, Tetsurou’s right arm slung over Kenma’s torso. Kenma has always been one to tease Tetsurou for cuddling in his sleep, or cuddling right  _ before  _ he goes to sleep, but he doesn’t complain, even if it’s just for the night, and so Tetsurou takes advantage.

“I’m glad we’re here,” Tetsurou breathes. “But, if we never moved from this bed, I wouldn’t complain.”

In lieu of a response, Kenma cocks his head up towards Tetsurou and then flickers his eyes upwards, either too nervous or too exhausted to ask for a kiss.

Tetsurou meets him halfway in a quick, gentle,  _ exhausted  _ kiss, one which any outsider might even describe as lazy. And, perhaps it is lazy, because Tetsurou is far too exhausted to exert effort, but his four year old is asleep beside them, making it hardly an opportune time to kiss his boyfriend with vigor.

“Get some rest,” Kenma requests of him in a hushed tone, eyes still lidded from the contentment of being kissed, of being in Tetsurou’s arms, of being in  _ their  _ bed in  _ their  _ new apartment.

How on earth Tetsurou got to this point, or how he got to deserve this is beyond him. Nobody should be lucky enough to see what he sees: the curve of Kenma’s cheek illuminated just slightly, his daughter’s hair messily braided and sticking to the pillow beside his own, her chubby cheeks in a pout.

He’s lulled to sleep by the quiet hum of a stand fan, two breaths mingled with his own, and a quiet buzz courtesy of the city streets two floors below.   

And, despite the newness of their apartment, despite how empty it is, despite all of that, Tetsurou has never felt more at home.

He sleeps well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i started writing this series when i was 17. i'm 19 now and very different than i was then, but what has never, ever changed is the appreciation i have for anybody who has, at any time, appreciated this story. thank you from the bottom of my heart.  
> and, with that, i put this verse to bed. <3

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! comments/kudos/bookmarks make me so happy :')


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